Celebrating January

We loved celebrating New Years this year. We had all of Dave's family over to our house and we ate tons of Chinese take-out, some watched some "important" football game, lit fireworks, played board games and let the kids and cousins run wild. Even all the little kids (except baby Hailey) were awake to celebrate. Once the ball dropped everyone cheered hooray and rushed to home to bed because this year we all have 9am church - Hallelujah! 

My beautiful daughters on New Years Day after church.

 Just not in the mood to sit still!

 One morning I asked Andrew to run and get changed out of his PJs. He came back still in PJs and with an Ashley tutu for a hat and was pretty proud of himself too. 

 January isn't much to celebrate, except of course on the 15th! I can't believe that I'm 32. Whoa, that doesn't sound good at all. We're pretty used to throwing kids parties and so that's exactly what the kids had in mind. They picked out a Lion Pinata, balloons (my favorites were the 2 balloons that said "Birthday Boy" on them), streamers, cupcakes and cake. They are so used to what I do on their BDays that they also asked to put pictures of me all over the walls and have a big blowup movie in the backyard, but we talked them out of those ideas. 

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My birthday was a Sunday, which was fun because I get to see so many people on Sunday. That night we had a great dinner at Kim's house then everyone came to our house for a kid game, pinata, cupcake decorating contest and of course, presents and cake. It was simple and perfect. 

 Uncle Rich had Hailey in hysterics playing with the streamers!

 Ashley loved the lion pinata so dearly. She was taking pictures with my small camera all over the house and wanted a shot of the two of them together. So hilarious! We've done a lot of pinatas and this was our biggest dud yet! It was decapitated after 3 light hits but, no candy came out. Then we hung up just the body and it was fine for a few more kids' turns, until it brushed the ground and the whole thing exploded. 

 The cupcakes were crazy faces and were all really darling. 

 Andrew started skiing with me last season. We both love it. This year I've only taken him once on my own and he did great. Then...

Andrew's amazing preschool offered a ski lesson program through Brighton and we've been loving it. He gets to ski with some preschool buddies, I get to come for free to help get kids up the lift and best of all -  in his 2 lessons so far he has learned about 100x more than in all of the 10 or 15 times I've taken him. The instructors are great and they expect more out of these kids than I thought I could. They even went through some tree areas, which was Andrews favorite part.

 Skiing with a buddy. 

 He is doing so awesome and loves it. Last week he had such a blast. The only time he cried was when it was time to go and then he fell asleep in the car about 10 minutes later. 

Dave's wonderful Grandma Karma passed away today. It was very expected and really a relief to the family that now she can move on and be well. She isn't even my own Grandma but, I love her like she is. I think everyone does. I'm sad and will miss her, and I'm sad that my kids probably won't remember her. I've been surprised at my own emotions and I think it just shows that it is always hard to see someone you love die, even if you know it is right. But, more than sad, I'm so happy for her. She was a few weeks from her 91st birthday and had lived a full, happy life and was anxious to go too. This is a picture of her and Hailey on November 8th, and she still looked great! 

Today I've been scanning in a bunch of her old photos to make a photo montage for her funeral. Picture after picture I can't get over how beautiful she was, and I sometimes felt sorry for the other girls or women standing with her who must have felt self conscious. Here she is on the left at 16 years old and just gorgeous! Dave has sweet memories of his grandma, and even I do too. She was spunky, funny, honest, complimentary, and always ready to help and give. We love you Grandma Karma!