January, in a Nutshell

Here's a drive-by look at our January...

This is what my living room looks like most afternoons.  The boys were playing with Porter's new birthday toys (and pushing him around in his new walker).

Porter fell in love with this Ugly Doll, Grandma Larsen got him for Christmas.  He calls it his "Baby" and says, "Baby, baby" whenever he sees it.  He likes to snuggle with it and this is an attempt by me of trying to get a picture of it.

We took pictures in the bathroom at Church...

Our commuter car broke down a few weeks into the new year.  We bought it seven years ago after Carson was born, and it has been a super reliable car.  It only had 40, 000 miles on it when we bought it and now it has over 170,000.  Its definitely seen its share of commuting.  Jeff and I both used it to commute to Idaho Falls when we lived in Rexburg, and Jeff has used it almost non-stop since we moved to Utah.  It started over-heating, and after having our neighbor (who is a mechanic) look at it, we determined that it was the head gasket and possibly a cracked head. I called around to mechanics and got estimates from about $1,700 to $3,000.  I called my mom and step-dad (my step-dad owns a mechanic shop) and my step-dad said those prices were absurd and that they would come down and get the car for us and fix it.  I can't tell you how blessed I felt that they were willing to do that for us!  He ended up fixing the head gasket, re-machining the head, and replacing our front brakes for a little over $800!  Of course that includes a nice family discount:).  Either way, we were extremely humbled for such a wonderful blessing.

During the two weeks we were without a car, the boys and I were getting up at 4:30 everyday, loading up in the van (in sub-zero temps, yuck!) and taking Jeff to the Park & Ride so he could catch his carpool.  Another blessing that we had in all of this is that Jeff was transferred to a job in Ogden in December.  It is about an hour and twenty minute commute and so four other guys he was working with decided to car pool together to save gas money.  I don't know what we would have done if he would have had to have taken the van for those two weeks!  Anyways, Jonas and Mason both started taking naps again in the afternoon since they were getting up so early.  They would usually wake up just in time for us to load up and go pick up Daddy.

Yet another blessing for us, was that when our car was finished, Jeff's Dad and Step-mom happened to be coming to Utah.  His step-mom drove our car back here for us and it was such a blessing for us to save the gas money it would have taken to go to Idaho to get it!  The day they came down, we all loaded up in the van to go meet them at Alese and Shane's new house. We are so excited for them to finally have a house and its been fun watching them fix it up.

About this time, Carson started into Junior Jazz basketball.  

 He had a lot of fun playing and learned lots of new skills.

I caught my three younger boys playing together nicely quite a few times.  It melts my heart every time!

 We started making the boys take more responsibility with after dinner clean up.  Normally I just have them clear their plates and cups, but I decided it was time they learned to actually DO the dishes. I love seeing them work together!

Porter was busy discovering all of the cupboards and drawers in the kitchen. I love that he thinks its his duty to make sure they are all empty.

I snagged a few more dishes for my china hutch.  I pretty much love this platter I found at Tai Pan.

 I broke out my flute and played it for the boys.  Carson is always asking me to play it for him and tells me he likes it. I haven't played my flute regularly since I did band in college.  I may be getting a little rusty.

We dealt with snow, snow, and more snow.  One day Jeff had a snow day from work because Ogden had gotten two feet of snow and there was no way they were going to work outside in that.  He was so nice to go shovel everything off for me since I was teaching preschool at our house that day.

And if you made it this far, congratulations!  You now know what we did in January:).