January...

As you can probably imagine, since January was already some 3 months ago, I've forgotten A LOT about and of what details or silly things the boys may have said during that month. I remember being SICK a lot- morning sickness ALL DAY, nearly EVERY DAY, even with my Zofran medication I was taking twice a day. The boys were sick some too- this has been a brutal winter; it seems as thought at least 2 of the boys have been sick every two or three weeks since the end of October; the sick germs just won't go away! I scrub my house from top to bottom EVERY week in bleach and other cleaning solutions but still have yet to win the war against colds and germs this season... it's SO FRUSTRATING!

We enjoyed a few good visits from a couple of friends we don't get to see too often. My old roommate from college/good friend, Danielle, came to visit us from Washington D.C. where she has been living the past couple of years; she was here for 5 days and stayed with us for one of those nights before heading back home. It was nice to chat with her in the company of another friend of ours by the name of Rachel; we had the chance to "catch up" and reflect on the past, remembering all the silly things we did together when we were roomies. Lacy, one of my mission companions, also came to town for a visit near the end of January with her little boy, and it was fun "catching up" on things for one afternoon while she was out here from Texas.

Les and Linda, my in-laws, celebrated their 40Th wedding anniversary in January. We celebrated with them over dinner at The Macaroni Grill one evening with Spencer's sisters, Laura and Megan, and family friends, Mata and Eden; it's ALWAYS FUN getting together with family to celebrate while eating GOOD food! A week or two after eating out with them, we surprised Les and Linda early one morning over at the Scera show house by having them watch a 30 minute movie Spencer put together about the family. Spencer used clips from family home movies and photographs to compile the movie- it took him a LONG time to make the movie but his hard work was well worth it. I don't think there was a dry eye among the family and friends in attendance who came to watch it with us. Les and Linda are an INCREDIBLE couple!

There's NEVER been a boring moment in our household; the boys ALWAYS make sure to keep things ALIVE around here. One morning we woke up to find them already awake in their bedroom... they'd woken up early only to open their closet and COMPLETELY empty all their clothes and blankets out into Ian's crib, ALONG WITH all the books off their bookshelves. Everything in the room was completely out of place! It literally kept me busy for two hours after wards cleaning up after them. I've ALREADY began to wonder for myself sometimes whether my boys think of me as their mother or CONFUSE me sometimes for their personal maid???

Noah still had the nerve to keep making more of a mess for me to clean up,
even after we caught he and Ian destroying their room!

In similar case scenarios, most kids would run and hide;
apparently my children don't react the same as "most" children would!

Noah enjoyed one or two sleepovers at his grandparents house in January;
I'm not really sure what he does during his sleepovers. I KNOW he usually stays awake a bit later than he's used too because Grandma looses track of time; I'm pretty sure it's fair to assume he's SPOILED ROTTEN during his stay with Grandma and Grandpa Campbell- he's got the two of them wrapped around his little finger.

Here he is eating an ice cream cone with grandpa and Eden.
I bet he thought he was in heaven.
It's not very often I give him ice cream; especially in a cone...
I can't stand the sticky results!
Here's Noah playing marbles at grandma and grandpa's. He LOVES to play marbles but doesn't always have the opportunity to play if his younger brothers are around because the tiny marbles are choking hazards and the baby likes to pop them in his mouth. When Noah is on a sleepover ALONE with grandma and grandpa, there are NO restrictions about playing marbles... LUCKY KID!I laughed so hard the first time I saw this picture.
Apparently Linda bought Noah his
very own toddler bed to sleep in just for sleepovers!
Even more funny is that she's moved the tot bed into her room!
If she wants to let a 3 year old sleep in her room with her and keep her up late and wake her up at the butt crack of dawn, she's welcome to do so...
I would NEVER do it... but she's more than welcome too!This is another funny picture that made me chuckle when I first saw it.
Noah's napping with this HUGE ugly bird puppet of some sort.
I'm pretty sure it's at least 30 years old (something Linda probably found stuffed away in a box downstairs in storage) and it's probably never ever been washed during its existence.
Kinda grosses me out that my kid was sleeping so closely to it!
My guess, just from studying the picture below, is that even Noah was a bit startled to wake up from his nap and find this scary bird laying beside him! He probably thought the bird was going to peck his eyes out with that HUGE beak! LOOK at the expression on Noah's face!

It continued to SNOW here A LOT the month of January...

While Noah's over at his grandparents on sleepovers, he's put to work every morning feeding the birds outside with grandpa; regardless of rain or snow, it's work that HAS TO BE DONE- though I've asked myself this question now once or twice... what birds hang around Utah when winter looks like this?!

Ian always has a hard time coping with Noah's absence; Ian is a "people person" and really enjoys the company of others; usually the company of his older brother Noah... if Noah's not around he prefers to stick like glue to Cohen and be constantly by his side. I walked into the boys room one afternoon, while Noah was still away, to find Ian had crawled into the crib to sleep with Cohen during nap.

I'm not convinced from this picture that
Cohen was HAPPY to have the extra company in bed...he looks more annoyed
and as if though he wants me to rescue him from the situation.

Spencer and I had been entertaining the idea of moving Ian out of the baby crib and into his big boy bed for weeks. We had just moved Noah from the bottom bunk up to the top bunk with no problem (although if you look close enough in the picture below you'll notice there's no ladder leading to the top bunk- that's because we never attached it; we don't want to encourage Ian to try and climb up to the top bunk too, especially while we're not present) but helping Ian make the transition from crib to bed wasn't as easy. We tried for 3 or 4 days to get him to sleep in the bottom bunk bed with no success, BUT THEN ONE NIGHT while Spencer and I were gone on a date to hear the Utah Symphony play Four Seasons, our babysitter who was watching the boys, 16 year old Eden, managed to convince Ian it was time to start sleeping in his big boy bed and he's been doing it ever since! Thanks Eden!!! Whatever she did to charm the child worked and it's saved me and Spencer tears and fits since.

Noah & Ian sharing their bunk bed. Look how happy the two look!
They're both ready for bed with books and flashlights by their side
and sippies in hand (don't worry, it's not milk or juice, just a little bit of H2O).

Walking with Dinosaurs came to town in January and we were lucky enough to get two tickets to watch the event. I took Noah on a Sunday afternoon to watch (I know some of you reading this might be SHOCKED that I'd do such a thing and break the Sabbath but I did what was best; go ahead and judge); we chose to go on a Sunday afternoon because we wanted to avoid the HUGE crowds and we got great seats in the 18Th row of the first section for relatively cheap that otherwise on any other day would have cost us a fortune. The show was AMAZING! Seriously so cool! It was like nothing I'd ever seen before. It was funny because prior to the show starting Noah and I sat for a little while waiting, during which time he kept asking me where the dinosaurs were. I told him they were busy, so he assumed they were getting dressed and brushing their hair, just like what he had done just before leaving home. Silly kid- yeah the dinosaurs were eating a lunch before show time and flossing their teeth- I'll bet that's EXACTLY what they were doing before the show!

Eating popcorn and just waiting for the show to begin...

Stanley the Stegosaurus and some other dinosaur duking it out...

A Pterodactyl or something of sorts soaring above the audience...

I'm not a paleontologist so I don't know the names of these little dinosaurs,
but I do remember I've seen them before on Jurassic Park.When the T-Rex came out and let out a "ROAR" it was so loud it made the entire stadium shake!
I wouldn't want to have an encounter with "Mr. T" in the wild.Noah's been COMPLETELY fascinated by dinosaurs ever since seeing Walking With Dinosaurs...
lucky we found him a pair of these dino feet slippers after the show was over
so that he can wear them around the house to scare everyone with!

My mother in law, Linda, had an extra ticket to the Draper Temple Open House and took Noah with her one Saturday in January. I've been told by both Linda and other family members who had gone too, that Noah was really quite reverent in the temple- thank heavens! and that while he enjoyed seeing the temple, the bus ride to the temple was his favorite part about the trip.
Last of all, thought I'd mention that I caved and bought one of these jumper thingies for Cohen. We've always used the jumper you hang in the doorway and an exersaucer for our other children, but the excersaucer takes up too much space so in our move here last August, I left it behind at Spencer's parents house, and the jumper we've had is always such a pain to hang and remove from the doorway, it was time to downsize and get some sort of jumping contraption that would function as both toys had before... this is what I found and Cohen ABSOLUTELY L.O.V.E.S. it, not to mention, the older boys do too! Ian's climbed into it at least 10 or 12 times, only to get stuck trying to get out of it, and Noah's given it a try at least once or twice.

This first picture is a little bit blurry- that's because I couldn't get the kid to stop bouncing!

OUCH! I'm sure his neck hurt probably hurt a bit; he jumped around in it so much that he fell asleep in it.This picture is funny because one day we found Cohen asleep in the jumper with his finger stuck!