January

New Years is always refreshing....people always find new ways to reinvent themselves. For us as a family...we have decided the new year will bring us to travel more and visit more family....maybe Spring Break and summertime...as well as hitting the beach later in the year.

We have also decided to eat more healthy. Dominic eats terrible...no fruits or veggies, so I have started to find ways to sneak in veggies in sauces and his food. Recently, we've had talks about organic food and just food in general...and junk. We talked about energy and how all foods give energies but not all of them are for long periods of time, or not even good nutritional value. The only reason we had this conversation, was because he's learning about heart disease in GYM and what causes it. He kept telling me to not add salt to things....but I argued that everything canned or even chips had tremendous amount of salt....and that's how our conversation started. I figured it was now or never. He seems to want to do better. He has told me several times already to go buy some "organic" snacks haha. I was hoping it was leading more into fruits and veggies. 

Getting their yearly checkups done

The boys had yearly checkups and everything was good. Ethan still has bad eyes and constantly has infections and we have decided to ask for suggestions as how to proceed, so we will see a pediatric eye doctor, which will probably suggest for his tubes to be removed. He was severely traumatized from the OK doctor trying to take them out in the office (by just pulling them) so I"m not sure how to proceed here....We'll pray and fast and see how we can resolve this.

We also started projects. It took us way too long, but it honestly took us this long to get adjusted to everything around us. There was no time to do landscape nor indoor stuff during the summer. Spencer worked too much and I was trying to still balance three kids (and nursing). But we're finally past all that. This house is actually pretty well taken care of. We just decided to paint stuff for now. The previous owner was a single mom with daughters so a lot of spaces are kinda girly....a lot of teal and soft purples (like the office and bathroom)...easy fixes. So, we started with the open room. I think it's a formal dining room, but it's kinda tight for a really big table...so a homework room it is. Dominic and ethan like doing workbooks and doing crafts...this space is perfect for them. Eventually we will give them our current dining room table (with 4 chairs) and then we'll upgrade to something nicer....but for now..we have a tiny toddler table. They're fine with that for now.
The whole room was a really dark teal...it just made it look so much smaller than it was. Since the previous owner left all the paint colors, we just decided to leave a teal wall (for emphasis) and then paint the rest of them back to the gray color the rest of the house is. We also took the blinds out to let more light in...and we moved them to the loft (which was actually missing blinds. Made more sense to have them there for more privacy).
We started doing closets...Dominic's will be the cheapest...so we will start there. Then, once we get a feel for the the closet system installation, we will tackle Ethan's, Jacob's and then ours...which is so big, that will take too long.

Starting new....we started home projects by repainting the open room
in the first floor. We decided to make it into a homework room. 

He's always serious when it comes to food

He loves it when people are stuck in the room with him

Figured out how to get down. 

Waiting for Ethan's speech to be done

We also happened to go to the Science Museum. Spencer happened to be off on a day that Dominic was off too...we got super lucky. They had a lot of neat new stuff. They had a whole wing dedicated to games and videogames. Dominic was in heaven and Ethan was in love with the basketball arcade game. Both boys had a blast...

New area in the Science Museum

Ethan loves games that help get his wiggles out

Hates the stroller

My favorite part....they created a space in the Museum about where our
food and soil comes from. They actually have a small farm attached to it
that you can roam around in...but it was too cold this time. 

Trying to make a space shuttle that won't explode in orbit

Spencer  was working on most Sundays this month, so it was me and the kids. Most of the time, they were fine. Sometimes, we would skip Sacrament because I just couldn't handle all three kids being obnoxious. Dominic really cannot sit...and brothers follow suit. Jacob is at that awkward stage where he wants to walk and can't....and he doesn't want to sit. I am wishing for him to turn 18 mo faster, so i can drop him off at nursery.

Sunday best

Sunday best

Sunday best

Dominic has been having a special year this year. This is the year he is turning 8 (until December though). He, all by himself, decided that he wanted to go to all of his friends' baptisms. I thought it was sweet idea. Since my kids do not sit and are not super obedient, I decided to let this be something between Spencer and Dominic. So Spencer gets home from work and takes Dom to church (once a month) to see a friend gets baptized. Our stake is large...and we have about 18 kids in Dom's church class...so they pick one Sunday a month and do all of the ward's baptisms then. Some months will have 5-6 kids being baptized...that's nuts. All of them in our ward. And Dom will be the only one and last one in December....
While Dominic goes, Ethan and I try to make it special too...he picks a game and we play whatever he chooses...and we get to eat popcorn. We'er the only two in the family that actually enjoy eating popcorn....so it becomes a bit more special.

Dom had a baptism to attend so it was just me and
this dude...winner takes all popcorn

Everyone now and then, Ethan's school sends pictures of the classes. I enjoy seeing what the kids are up to. Ethan loves playing with all his classmates, but he'll tell you his favorite part of the day is snack time.

Ethan's class

brothers

Superbowl weekend was so NICE....we've had some pretty bad weather....at one time, we even had negative wind chills, but one weekend...it was like 60 degrees, so we decided to go to the neighborhood park. Ethan loves the monkey bars, and Jacob LOVES the swing....my only kid to do so.

he silently loves it