Better late than never?

I blinked, and January ended, and with it went my plans of blogging more regularly. Oh Well, here's our monthly catch up. We rang in the new year by cleaning out our attic and storage room. I'm serious, I took this picture on new years eve.

And this collage is to commemorate Peters first day in Primary as a Sunbeam. The first few weeks went  really well, and I thought maybe I had been worrying about how he would do for nothing. But this week the honeymoon ended and Peter was there in sharing time in all his crazy, in your face glory. Apparently he started a tickle fight and had  his entire class rolling around on the floor before they could even finish the opening song. And it went downhill from there.  I apologized to the teacher and tried to break it to her that she finally go to see the real Peter, and the previous few weeks were just an act. I'm pretty glad I'm not in primary right now.

Andi turned 10! I don't know why, but every year it surprises me how old she's getting. The day of her birthday we celebrated with brownies and ice cream at home, it was a school night. And we added a ton of new nail polish to her caboodle full of nail supplies.

That weekend she got to take a couple friends to lunch at CPK, where she never gets pizza, and to watch Star Wars. She'd been asking to see it since it came out, so we obliged. Sammy was pretty excited to see it too. Don't worry, we made them watch the original 3 beforehand so they understood the story.

And then the next day we had family dinner and another celebration at my parents house. She will never be able to say that her birthday was overlooked.

Kelsie & Cameron came to town on the way to a conference and dropped off Porter & Brighton with us for a week. All the kids were excited about it at first, but then the reality that they still had to go to school set in and it was less fun than they had anticipated I think. Lucky for me, Brighton decided I would do as a mom substitute for the week, and except for 2 rough nights we got along quite well.  This girls likes to party late at night.

Not kidding. I took this picture at 1:30 in the morning and texted it to Kelsie so she could be awake with us.  

Unfortunately before the week was up both Peter and Sammy started running fevers and feeling really cruddy. Peter was already not crazy about sharing my attention with Brighton in the first place, and then he got sick and really demanded mommy time. So that got complicated. I had to take a picture of Peter asleep on my shoulder in the middle of the afternoon because he never naps. And he crawled up in my lap and was out in seconds. And then he started getting really hot. 

Ashlynn had her sweet baby Opal and after the boys were well I got to go over and meet her. So crazy to think that I held that baby's momma in my arms when she was that little too.

And even crazier to see that the babysitting cycle is just going to keep going. I babysat Bash, she babysat Andi, and while Andi still has a little while before she can take over with Opal, it's come full circle.

Thad found come "classic" nintendo controllers with USB, so we introduced the kids to super mario brothers, zelda, and tetris this month. It's been fun, but I was reminded again why we will never buy a game system.

These are just a few of Peters daily nonsense. He's been loving all the rain, or at least all the mud that the rain leaves in its wake.

And his version of playing battleship is to fill the board in completely.

 "Momma, I built a temple. Come picture it!"

Apparently there is an inside joke behind this between Thad and his Dad, but this is Thad and Sammy before church started a couple weeks ago.  Sunday Selfie.

Thad also went on a scout camp out this month, and a business trip to New Jersey. I taught an organization class for stake personal progress day, we sang in sacrament meeting, I've been working on New beginnings and two other musical numbers and it seems like one thing gets finished just in time to start the next.

But this past weekend my Grandma passed away, and even though we are now making funeral arrangements, her passing has made me take a minute to just stop, and evaluate my life, and make sure that my family is in alignment with our eternal goals. I am grateful for a testimony of the plan of salvation and that my grandmother became converted to the gospel as a young woman. I know that with her passing her mind is whole again and the ailments of mortality no longer plague her. I hold tightly to the knowledge that my family is sealed for time and all eternity. Families are Forever.