January

Here is what has been going on with us. 

The kids seemed to have many days off of school in January. To keep busy, we did a lot of coloring. One of the coloring books that the kids got was this 3D book that lets your pictures come to life on your phone: 

Our friends had their annual king cake party and we got to eat these delicious cakes

We finished our Pandemic game! Took us 13 months.

We attempted to build an igloo. Didn't quite work out...

Josie was a sweet, silly nut

And also a trouble maker

The kids got invited to a birthday party at the local indoor pool

Lukes friend came to stay with us with his son.

The kids continue to do great in swim team

 The weather is nice enough to run outside again

And take bike rides with the kiddos

We finally made it to the pinball arcade/bar downtown.

Luke had his nails done

The kids participated in a jog-a-thon at their school

We had the chance to dog-sit for our neighbors. The kids absolutely LOVED having a dog!

Lily got to have some playdates with her best friend

She also got another sister:

Even Josie has a new little friend and got to have her first playdate

Here are some recent videos:

Josie loves to dance!

The kids fun run was nuts!

My little chat with Josie

The kids Warhead challenge

New Years!

We hosted a big New Years Eve party at our house this year. There must have been over 50 people! The plan was to have the ball drop at 10pm and then end the party, but we were having so much fun... party didn't end until close to 1am. 

We had 'Just Dance'

And Texas Hold 'Em

 The kids ran around all night playing together

Champagne at 10pm and again at midnight!

When the last guest left, we couldn't find Josie. Turns out she had walked upstairs and put herself to bed. She was such a little trooper though!

The next morning we all woke up in last nights clothes. We looked much worse than Josie:

There were two huge boxes of beer/wine/champagne bottles to show us how much we drank. We spent the whole day recovering on the couch.

Was a super fun night, but probably only something we could do once a year. We are getting to old to drink that much and stay up that late ;-)

Christmas Break

We had a super busy Christmas break! There were many, many house projects to finish. A big New Year's Eve party to plan, and a few fun days for the kids. 

One of our favorite things to play right now is our Just Dance game. The kids are getting pretty good at it. This is Josie's favorite song: 

The kids made up a band:

One day we met up with Jack's best buddies for a movie and Chuck E Cheese:

Lily's friend Hazel got to join us at Chuck E Cheese too:

Another day we took the kids to Fort Fun

My parents took Jack and Lily for 3 days to Colorado Springs. I arranged to have a babysitter every night for Josie so Luke and I could take advantage of the alone time.

The first night we went out for beers and then to a steak dinner

The second night we met up with friends for an escape room and more beers

Christmas!

The night before Christmas... 

 Christmas morning!

 The girls in their new outfits

Santa surprised the kids with a trampoline in the backyard

 Then Papi Santa came by for a visit. Josie was brave enough to take a picture

We had our traditional raclette Christmas dinner: 

Lily's friend Hazel's family joined us for Christmas dinner. It was a great night!

December

Here is what we were up to in December:

Jack had a project in his French class to do an "All about me" poster. He had to give the presentation in French and I thought I had filmed it but turned out I didn't ever start the video :( But here is the poster he created

Luke has had an easy month at work with lots of parties and fun activities. One day the team all went to an escape room;

At home we've continued with house projects. This month Luke hooked up all the new lights

Our new chandelier was quite the project as it consisted of hundreds of shells that were each individually wrapped

So handy to have an electrical engineer in the house

I took the kids to see Santa. Josie was excited to see Santa at first

But when we finally got to him, she didn't want anything to do with him

But a a week later we saw Santa at the gym and Josie finally conquered her fear!

Another night we went to a Christmas tree lighting. It was crowded and freezing but the kids enjoyed it

The kids and I went sledding after school one day

Speaking of school, Lily wrote her first love letter to a boy in her class, Caden:

 

Here is Lily and her class at their holiday party

I was able to hit the trails a couple times when it was warmer enough to bring Josie along

Josie really is pushing her independence lately. She wants to do everything I do, and do it by herself. Including wearing mascara...

 And putting on deodorant

 

Here are some cute videos of Josie's spunky personality:

The kitchen is pretty much finished! Here are before and after pictures:

Even though the kitchen is brand new, we still suffered from some plumbing issues. One night I went in the basement to play with the kids only to find water leaking from above. As it turns out, out island sink plumbing became disconnected and all the sink water was flooding into the cabinet and seeping down through the piping. It could have been a disaster, but thankfully we caught it right away!