January Highlights 2015

Highlights from January 2015 included:

1. New Years Eve with the Grimshaw family.  Mindy had darling balloons with activities every few minutes from 9:00 until midnight.  We are getting old - it was a chore to stay up that late!

A sun-BEAM a sun-BEAM!

2.  Daphne became a Sunbeam!  She really struggled the first couple of weeks, but is doing much better now (more on that in another post).

3.  Date night to see the movie version of "Into the Woods".

4. Burke went snowmobiling up at Co-Op with Mike on a Saturday.

5. Temple trip with the Elders Quorum.  Cliff Kimber couldn't find his recommend so we ended up leaving 45 minutes late.  Then we chose a sit down restaurant (my bad!) instead of doing something fast and we ended up missing the last session!  Instead we did sealings and it was so peaceful.  It was nice to get to know the Listers and Kimbers better.

6. Burke was elated when he saw the cover of TIME.  He has always had a vendetta against margarine and been a butter advocate.

7. Had our new neighbors, the Barnes family, for dinner one night and Lauren and Eric Baker another night.  I love entertaining and making new friends! 

Blogger won't flip the picture for some reason.

8. We "splurged" and bought some fancy cheese. Oh. My. Goodness.  I could eat that stuff all day long.

9.  Burke's cousin Nathan Urie was featured in the newspaper.  He was born with one arm, but is an incredible wrestler, rides broncs, snowboards, etc.  He is so inspiring to me.  http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865619710/?user=app

10. Sadie turned 10!  LeeAnn made adorable Minion Cupcakes and we drove to Parowan briefly to wish her a happy birthday.

11. Reviewed "Marcelo in the Real World" at Dana Hunter's for the Relief Society Book Club.  Mediocre book.  Great discussion.

12. Daphne and I made "maps" for Burke to find the buried treasure in the sandbox at the park behind our house.  His treasure?  A bouncy ball.

13. Last summer Burke bought an Aero Garden at a yard sale for $5 bucks.  When we looked them up online, it turns out his model costs $150 bucks new and it worked perfectly.  Burke has been SO looking forward to trying this out.  He planted the first week of January and this is what we had after just 3 weeks!  Now it is massive, growing peppers and kale in the storage room.  Burke loves to come home from work and check on his plants daily. :)

14. On January 12, we got a new nephew!  Blake Kevin was a chunky baby (almost 9 lbs!) and it was so much fun to go see him through the hospital window when he was only a few hours old. I loved seeing Darcie staring at him and wondering if they were cheering each other on before they came down to earth so close to each other.  He is a precious babe.

15. Speaking of precious babes...I helped Burke organize some old files and came across these gems of Burke's baseball days.  Cutest buck-toothed athlete ever! :)

16. For Martin Luther King Day, we met the Ridings at Zion National Park and hiked Emerald Pools with the kids for free national park day.  Going up was great, but by the time we came back down there were a ton more people on the trail.  It was so nice to hike next to Cassie and get a chance to visit with our babies strapped to our chests.  The kids had a good time too and Lydia and Emmett hiked the whole way while Daphne and Millie rode in packs on the mules...I mean Daddies.

17. Burke had a Hay Symposium in St. George for work at the end of January.  We got to go down with him and spend the night in a hotel together.  Daphne kept pretending she was on important phone calls in the room while we waited for Burke.  She was also beyond excited to swim in the pool with Daddy!

18.  Couldn't get enough of this monkey.  I mean, really.

19.  We had lots of bundled up walks with these lovies.

20. Towards the end of the month we hosted a couple's game night with some younger families in our ward.  It was such a blast!  I love doing things without kids sometimes too because then people aren't so distracted and can finish a sentence.  We ended up playing Telestrations and Werewolf and we were laughing so hard.  Everyone brought a treat/snack to share which made hosting so simple.  I felt like it helped me get to know each couple a little better and it was fun to do something outside of church together.  We wrapped up the games at about 11:30, but a few of the couples stayed on visiting until 1:30 in the morning!  I loved that they were having such a good time, but part of me wanted to be like, "Umm...I have a 3 month old who is going to be waking up any minute now for her nightime feeding!"  Sure enough, 30 minutes after we crashed into bed Darcie woke up hungry.  We definitely payed for our late night frivolities, but it was worth it!