A Northern Belle in Boots: Cute Pic Post -- January 2016

December flew by with Christmas Activities, some sickness, and ending with my surgery. We had a good New Years despite my surgery that morning and then hit the ground running in January. We spent time with family on the 1st like we normally do, purged toys and books, finally found a home for Gran's piano, moved Graham into a big boy bed (from the toddler bed he had been in for the last few years), had some house renovations done in the family room, spent most of the month trading around colds and fevers, and then ended on a high note with lice. GAH!

Thankfully, I never got sick (post surgery would have been really bad), but all the boys had asymptomatic fevers followed by weeks of cough. Graham had two more ear infections (following the one he had in December), so I spent a lot of time at doctor offices or home with sick kids. And then when we spotted the nits, we had to go through days of using up all the hot water and nit picking (forever the term will mean something else!) and shampooing with special stuff. Graham still has some PTSD from the special stuff. Enjoy the month in pictures. lol

That Georgia.

In the middle of sorting and purging books, we had to read the most recent one gifted by Aunty Anne.

I'm trying to be better about Outfit Pictures.

The Daddle. I swear one year I'll actually keep it.

One of Carson's new tricks.

After over two years, we finally found a family that was extremely serious about taking Gran's piano. We chose what had to have been the coldest, windiest day to go to storage and hand it off to Paul's moving crew, but I'm glad that is off our shoulders. Seth sat down to play a few things and it still sounded great even after having sat in storage all that time. We pray that kiddos get to learn on it and that the love of music is continued for another generation.

We went to "Toys For Us" (as Graham calls it) to use the gift cards that Aunt Rory gave us and the boys had a blast picking out what they wanted. With the whole store at their fingertips, it became a serious case of ADD, but we tried to help steer them in the right directions. I think they're both happy with what they chose. Thanks Aunt Rory!

I find it is so difficult to get all three in one picture so when I saw the
bigs sitting on the couch, I plopped Carson in the middle and snapped away!

Milk Drunk

I'm so excited to host this next month!

By now this is old hat, but he crawls over and stands up!

Playing Patty Cake with a cute baby.

You can't see his face well,
but he thought this was hilarious!

We got Graham in a new, big boy bed from Costco.
We strapped it to the roof of my car and
drove home with the flashers on in the pouring rain.
What a memory!

Such a big boy.

Fever #1

All bundled up in his big bed.

During the home renovation stuff, we had no internet, so Cars it was!

Graham loves putting this plane together.

Thankful we have two living areas.
The Front Room became a giant mess.

Did you know that Noah took Cars and Planes too?

Go Jackets!

Carson loves playing with the "dangerous things."

Chapters read these; I'd never read TKAM. I disliked GSAW.

Our church service streams live online which was good because we had yet another ear infection. He hadn't been on meds long enough for us to go to church, so we watched from home. The boys joined us for the singing and then went to play while Seth and I listened to the sermon.

I was also working on planning for IF.

I recently found two of my books on record that I thought had gotten lost over the years--Rainbow Brite and Popples! I paid a guy to transfer the record onto a cd so that we could listen to them, and the boys loved it. I was practically crying I was so excited! The boys have a handful of their books on cd, from movies they are into, but I like doing Bambi and these to keep their horizons broad. I believe that's Austin on my lap, Fever #2.

We love watching AFV together.
Although, I'm starting to get worried about the ideas
it's planting into the minds of these sons of mine!

This is the boys doing some of their books on cd. I think Carson has the fever now, so that's Fever #3.

A quote I liked from the book I finally finished on Essentialism.

We went to the doctor (again) to check for anything more serious since they had all had fevers, Graham had an ear infection, and then all three had this nasty cough that lasted for weeks. Everything tested fine, so it was just a cold lingering on, but we had to start doing breathing treatments. Carson HATES a breathing treatment. Austin's a champ at this point!

The next day I tried doing it this way and got better results.
I just aimed the vapor up his nose while he played with stuff.

As a part of the home renovation of the family room, we got a bigger rug. These two pictures show exactly why I wanted a new rug. More floor space that people can enjoy. We also took the time to purge/sort some of our AV equipment. We got rid of surround sound stuff we never used and hooked up the Nintendo systems. The boys weren't very good at this one, but I'd much rather them play this over and over than the Mario games we have for Wii. It feels safer and less likely to affect behavior. (Sometimes Austin gets all over-dramatic and bounces around like Mario from playing it.)