January Recap

January was busy--so busy that I got out of the habit of recording our family doings in this here journal.  So, for posterity, here's the January recap: snow days, Lainey's haircut, Em eating solids, skiing, and Ellie in sunbeams.

It took awhile to settle back in after our holiday trip, especially because there were SO MANY SCHOOL DELAYS AND CANCELLATIONS DUE TO WEATHER (by weather I mean "dangerously low temperatures," light snows, and freezing rain).  I don't think the weather was ever really bad enough to necessitate closing schools.  That said, I'm sure I'll feel put out if we ever move back west and I have to drive anywhere in snow ever.

Anyway, we enjoyed our snow days.  The girls played in the snow, I "forced" Liz to make a snowman with me (she was excited about it by the end, also, I wish I knew how lame that hat looked before Drew took the picture), the girls painted tons of pictures (Lainey tried to paint a "minion butt"), Drew shoveled lots of snow, we girls made valentine decorations, and I made lots of fabric flowers (possibly for Lainey's birthday party in September).

 Ellie began sunbeams (loves it), she went to the eye doctor (so far so good), she continued to color on her face pretty much daily, and enjoyed running (her "girl exercise") and singing what she remembers of "Let it Go."

 On MLK day Lainey cut her own hair.  It was in the afternoon when Drew and I had finally sat down for a break.  Lainey came up to me with a piece of paper and pair of scissors and asked if she could cut the paper.  I said yes.  Later, Laines came back with the scissors and asked if she could use them.  Assuming she meant the cut paper, I said, "Yes, Lainey.  Stop asking me."  Not long after she came with her hair chopped off on one side.  When I asked her why she did it, she said, "I wanted my hair cut to my shoulders" and "You told me I could."  Later I found the pile of hair hidden under and behind an armchair.

Luckily we were able to cover up most of Lainey's self haircut with a professional one:

Emma hit her six month mark and started eating solids!  Well, the purees anyway, and she didn't hate them as much as her sisters did at their initial feedings (but she really hated it at her second feeding). 

 

We took the kids skiing at Liberty towards the end of the month.  Andrew loved it.  Liz loved it.  Ellie loved it.  Lainey put on the gear and chickened out before she got on the lift (but she enjoyed playing on the snow mound at the bottom of the hill).  Emma and I (and sometimes the other girls) hung out in the ski patrol family room. 

Russian Roulette (a.k.a. one of my favorite family reunion memories)

One night some of the guys played Russian Roulette with the nerf guns Rob's boys received for Christmas.  Scott and Drew each played one round, then bowed out, but Mike (left), Rob (right), and Dave played multiple times.  We all thought it was hilarious.  They shot themselves in the neck, the temple, and the mouth.  At one point one of them suggested shooting themselves in the crotch but they decided against it because they were wearing jeans (and "it wouldn't hurt enough").  I actually heard one of the guys say, "We need to find a way to make this hurt more."  Men and women are so, so different.

The next night, while we were waiting for all the adults to show up for our white elephant gift exchange we started playing a trivia-Russian Roulette hybrid game.  We used questions from a survival board game.  If you missed a question the person next to you got to spin the chamber and shoot you once in the head.  Somehow the way we sat and started rotating ended up with most of the husbands shooting their wives.