January has been crawling by! It feels like such a long month every year, and this year has been particularly hard with Sean working long hours. The first 2 weeks were pretty miserable with him putting in about 65-70 hours at the hospital/clinic, and then still having to write notes when he got home. Last week was quite a bit better with way fewer patients and this week has been better as well. I guess the hardest part is knowing that this is hard, but that come Feb 1 he will be a Primary Children’s which has the reputation for being even more busy. While Sean has been working, we have been trying to stay busy. Brett and Alana have been feeling cooped up with the snowy weather and January is always a little gloomy compared with the fun of the holidays. We have been playing with lots of friends and working on different projects at home. We went and visited one of my favorite friends from Albuquerque. She lives in Tooele now with her 4 kids:

We went up to the Salt Lake Temple to babysit a little baby while his mommy went to a sealing. They are also great friends from Albuquerque! I should have gotten pictures of them!


After babysitting we stopped to get some donuts and Brett really wanted to finish his, but he wanted to show Grandma what his donut looked like. So we took a picture so he could eat and she would still get to see when she got home.
 
I bought the first of matching clothes for Alana and Lizzie.

The kids have spent countless hours petting and loving on Elroy!

After the busiest week, Sean was able to go into work a little late on a Saturday morning and the kids were so so thrilled!
 
Alana let me try a new style in her hair =)

We got to go to our friend Reagan’s birthday party which was so much fun! Brett and Alana were thrilled to play with friends, eat pizza and cupcakes, and give the birthday girl a present =) Alana was posing before church, we are loving the 11:00 time. Somehow it makes Sacrament meeting so much easier!
 
More pre-church posing:

28 week baby bump:
 
I mentioned that Alana is having a harder time with naps. I made her a little sticker chart and that has really helped, some days though she just isn’t tired so I make her sit and watch HGTV with me until she conks out (it usually only takes 3 minutes).

Kirsten and Reagan came up last Friday to help us made some sugar cookies and to play. We had lots of fun and ate lots of cookies before lunch!

Brett made a lion mask in school on Monday. The kids have been having fun playing Lion King. On Wednesday, Brett’s teacher planned a last minute zoo field trip. I couldn’t go because I had to go to the dentist to get a cap on a broken tooth, so Brett went on his very first big adventure without any family. He got to ride with his teacher, which he LOVED! He ate snacks and had so much fun! He didn’t get home till 2:00 and I admit I was super worried and missed him like crazy! I don’t know how i’ll handle Kindergarten next year! He had so much fun though, and it is so good for him to have some independence.
 
Alana has been continuing in her independence as well and now enjoys getting her pants and socks on by herself =) She is such a spunky girl and has been getting good at pushing her brothers buttons lately. I told Brett he needs to talk to my sister Sam about how to deal with a spunky little sister who likes to pester bigger siblings.
 
One of the projects I did was to turn the top sheet of Brett’s new star wars sheets into a quilt. I bought some blue flannel and added batting to the middle. Then I tied it and hand sewed the binding. It turned out darling and he loves it. I have also been working on making an under the sea wall hanging for Lizzie Jean. After my sister-in-law told me she had sold some toys to Kid to Kid, I decided to go through all our old kid clothes and get rid of them. I cleaned out the kids closet and cleaned out all the bins in the garage. I sold or donated all our old boy clothes (except for a few sentimental items) and went through and sorted the girl things. I don’t know if we will have another boy or another baby after this one, but I figured i would enjoy buying new things and all those bins were just taking up so much space. Here are Brett and Alana hanging out at Kid to Kid while we wait for our items to be sorted. I made almost $100 from all the clothes I sold.
 
Last Saturday the kids decided they wanted to go swimming. We went down to Provo and went with N&R. It was so much fun and I wish I would have gotten a picture!