January

This month has had a lot of ups and downs, with the downs being that everyone has been sick for basically the whole month.  Not sick enough that they have to stay home or can't go places, but especially Asher has had a lingering cough that just makes life a little more miserable.  It's been going around town and from what I can tell, everyone's doctors can't say exactly what it is.  It's not Covid or the flu or RSV and there's nothing they can really give you for it so you just have to power through it for a few weeks until you can finally shake it.  I'm feeling much better, so I'm glad about that!  I even was able to start working out again!  That was actually really hard because I hadn't worked out in about a month and whatever illness I had left me pretty weak.  But I'm glad I can start getting those endorphins again.

The good thing that happened were the girls had their first ballet recital!  They were getting a little bored with class because they didn't quite understand why they were learning a dance, but now that they've had a recital they are excited about it again!  I was a little worried they would freeze on stage because they'd never done anything like that before, but they did so well and had so much fun!  There was even a little scary moment where they started playing the wrong song at first, but it didn't seem to affect their performance at all.  Their class is pretty relaxed and definitely more for having fun and having the experience rather than focusing on performance, which I think is better for my girls.  It was so fun to watch them!  After Asher's orchestra concert I let him pick where we could go get ice cream and my girls were very jealous, so I told them that after their recital they would get to pick where we went.  They chose the very fancy ice cream of Costco, which suited me just fine!  They loved it and it was a great day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-clTel32R8

Now for lots of pictures from January!

This is Mia's new favorite pose.  She has started asking me to take more and more pictures of her.  Which I always do because she's adorable, but makes me think she's definitely going to be my most teenageriest teenager.

I found a whole group of selfies on my phone one day.

Cute ballerinas!  And Mia's favorite pose.

They were so excited to wear the pretty costumes and wear makeup!

I just want to kiss her little face!

Ready to dance!

They are the two on the end.  There were a few issues with costumes
so some of the girls had different dresses.

Grandma brought them flowers!  They thought that was the most special thing!

It was a fun day!

The teachers had 2 days of in-service so the kids got 2 days off from school.  I told them if they got their chores done we would go to a local thrift shop that for some reason has a cat shelter inside.  You can go in this little enclosure and play with cats that are up for adoption.  It's actually really fun!

I pointed this purple car out to Mia (She loves purple) and Asher said "That's not purple, it's blue".  I told him it was purple.  He said it was blue.  I took a picture and he said it looks blue in person, but purple in the picture.  My brothers are both a little color blind and my grandpa was very color blind.  This is not the first time that I've suspected Asher has a little touch of it.

"Mom, take a picture of me and my squishmallows!"

"Mom, take a picture of me in front of the fireplace with my earrings!"

I wondered (hoped) if Mia was kind of over her aversion to falling asleep at night.  She's gotten much better at actually falling asleep!  But the other night she had a hard time falling asleep so she decided to change out of pajamas and into her school clothes.  I just let her sleep like that. 
Also, those are her most favorite pants.  😄