Marshmallow has officially been shooed outside again. I'm so relieved! I was so tired of having dog hair all over everything and everyone. And he kept following me everywhere. It was so frustrating trying to cook while tripping over a dog at every turn. Hyrum says I should be grateful because it means he likes me. I suppose he's right, but man. I'm just not really a dog person, I guess. And I'm definitely not an indoor dog person.
His stitches will be ready to come out tomorrow. He's doing great.
This, however, does not get old. I love seeing the hot air balloons around town. This was on the way to church on New Year's Eve.
After church
This little boy is obsessed with tablets and phones. He's also showing his 2-ness. He gets grouchy super quickly and easily. But he's learning new words. :)
We didn't find Lil Smokies to make pigs in a blanket as per tradition, so we used hot dogs. The little ones have so much fun with that. They can do it with little assistance, and they eat them too. :) I also made lasagna, because that's tradition. I think we have more New Year's traditions than Christmas ones. Ha ha! We used to watch The Lord of the Rings every New Year, all three movies. I mentioned that, so Val turned on The Return of the King on his laptop. Jeremy and Val and a few others huddled around and watched it for a while. I couldn't see, so I turned on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty on my computer. I like that one. Then Val plugged his laptop into the HDMI port on our Blu-ray player, and then I watched the rest of the other one with them.
I used to make cheeseball every year, but then I started making it not just at New Year's and got a little tired of it. So I haven't made it for the last few years. We usually make donuts too, but I decided I'd rather have a banana split, and then we made blueberry smoothies instead. I wish we had stuck with banana splits, but oh well. Not bad. :)
Toasts! Lots of laughing was involved here. It was good times.
A couple of weeks ago Jill drew this picture of a fish bowl and then copied it 3 times on the printer. Then she numbered them and stuck them all under my door while I was showering or something. OK then...
Best New Year's gift ever! Jeremy fixed the downstairs toilet. It's an old one and has been leaking for quite a while. Jeremy and Benji replaced it with this new nicer one, and it's not leaking anymore. We needed new wax rings too. Those get so nasty when they're ready to be replaced! Jeremy is my hero for doing that!
Also on New Year's Day we went for a walk to play Pokemon Go - Jeremy, Benji, Henry, and I. Someone gave Henry new shoes for Christmas, and they've been great!
We let him out of the stroller, and he was so happy! :)
We found leaves! We did this last Christmas Break too. It needs to be a tradition. There are so many leaves in front of the math/science building. They stop cleaning them up because it's Christmas Break. But the next day they were pretty busy starting to clean up, so I'm glad we went when we did!
I made a leaf man. :)
We buried Benji and Henry. Well, actually, Henry was as covered as he wanted to be in this picture.
Benji!
We ran home and threw some kiddos in the van and took them to play too. :)
We've had some amazing sunsets lately. My camera doesn't do them justice.
I set a goal at the beginning of the year to read 12 books. I actually got 18. I forgot to add Man's Search for Meaning and The Bridge to Terabithia. I'm pretty pleased with this list. I think my favorites of the year are:
To Kill a Mockingbird
The Book Thief
The Chosen
All the Light We Cannot See
I didn't like Anne Frank like I thought I would. I mean, I liked it fine, but it didn't live up to the hype for me. I'm glad I read Tom's book. I'm glad I read The Curious Incident, even though it was intense and had language. It spoke to me.
So I'm working on next year's list. I've got a list a mile long, but slowly I'm getting through some. I think I'm adding books faster than I can read them. Ha ha!
Henry is really enjoying drawing lately. He's pretty patient about it too. He can cover a whole page in his little squiggles. Yesterday I was holding him on my lap while he drew in a notebook during Sacrament Meeting, and he kept drawing a little squiggle and then babbling to me about it while grabbing me around the neck with his free hand and forcing my head down to look at what he drew. Ha ha!
This sunset looked like it was painted. It was just one of those days where you step outside and just have to stand there saying wow for a minute. I wish I could have captured it with my camera. If you zoom in you can see a bit what I mean.
Timmy made me a chef hat.
Bubby wrapped his arm around Harry's leg. :)
Jill made a rocket ship with those pencils on the table. Had to take a picture. Ha! I made pancakes that day. Yum.
I cut hair of Saturday - Hyrum and down. I thought it was funny how these two strands of hair fell but caught on to the hair that was still attached like Barrel of Monkeys. :)
Benji didn't like that I gave him a haircut, so he scowled when I took this picture. Ha ha! I thought the new haircut along with the sideburns looked pretty handsome. :)
Not sure why Timmy wanted this picture. He didn't smile or show me anything, but he seemed pleased with it when I showed him.
More coloring
Bubby cheeks ready to go to the dentist. He's a pretty great guy.
We've been trying to catch up on dental work that we didn't have money to do last time around. Jill had some work done this morning, but not much. She didn't even have to be numbed, and we had a credit on our account, so we didn't have to pay anything. Sweet!
