January 2017

Hello 2017!  We celebrated the new year by taking a break from unpacking and just enjoying some family time.  Now January is over and the year is in full swing.

It went by quickly but it's been a good month and I think we are all adjusting pretty well.  I'm loving the lack of traffic, easy peasy parking, fewer crowds, and especially all the gorgeous mountain views.  All the snow birds started showing up the day after Christmas and it's been interesting seeing how much different it is here as compared to the summer.  Restaurants and stores are more busy and there just seems to be a general buzz in the air.

Being out and about with you here more I've also realized how much old people love kids and relish the opportunity to tell anyone about their grandchildren.  It's very sweet.

Here you are helping me prep your bookshelf for painting.  You were afraid of breathing in the dust and thought eye and nose/mouth protection was in order.

Snuggling in your new bed with some of your favorite friends.  When it was finally put together you wanted to spend all your time playing in the bed for the first week.

In an effort to get you around some other kids and get us out of the house I signed you up for a weekly ballet class and we've been going to story time at the library.  Here you are on your first day of ballet.

One day we were walking to the park and saw a lot of trash that you wanted to clean up.  We didn't have anything with us to put it in so I promised you we would bring a trash bag the next time.  A few days later we did just that.  We brought gloves and a trash bag and filled the bag.  I was so proud that it was your idea.

Let no dandelion go unblown.

Furniture complete!

I think the biggest highlight of this month was having Grandma and Grandpa come stay with us for more than 2 weeks!  We all had a great visit and I think it was so good for you to have a little distraction in the new house.  They both worked their tails off doing anything and everything to help us get the house in order, inside and out.  And we were able to have some fun and show them around the area as well, since this was their first trip to the desert.

A few days before they arrived you were driving a pretend car around the house going to the pretend airport to pick up pretend Grandma and Grandpa and yelling, "Oh Grandma and Grandpa!" all the way.

Here you are playing in painted rice with Grandma.

And helping Grandpa put his belt on.

Matching curlers for bedtime.

Movie night.

We've had an unusually wet month and that means lots of snow at the top of the tramway!  Despite their best efforts to get away from winter, we took them to the top anyway and had a fun, exhausting day playing in the snow.  We even remembered to bring a carrot and some raisin eyes so we could make a snowman.

Daddy took Grandma and Grandpa on one of the trails to see a nice lookout point but you were already too tired so we stayed back and made a second snowman and picked icicles off of boulders.

You are definitely a creature of habit.  So much so that you think we should sit at the same table anytime we visit a restaurant.  One day you were very upset when the booth we've sat in before was taken at The Habit and just this week I saw you scoping out our prior table at the sushi restaurant as soon as we walked in.

You learned how to play Uno and you are pretty good at it!

Helping Daddy put the new tires on his car.

You were so sad the day that we took Grandma and Grandpa back to the airport.  You cried most of the way home and so did I.  I knew it would be hard for you after such a long stay but it was compounded by the fact that you'd also just said goodbye to all your friends a few weeks prior.  Daddy and I did all we could to help you feel better so you and I baked cookies that afternoon for comfort.

We may as well take advantage of all the rain and go out and play!

We even got to see a couple of rainbows!

More ballet.

You are amazingly capable of expressing your feelings and calmly telling someone if you don't like something they are doing.  I pat myself on the back for this.  I am also trying to practice what I preach and learn to do that myself.

When I set your shoes out to put on, you ask, "Are they set which by which?"  Which means the left shoe on the left side and right shoe on the right side.

(Me just sitting down for the first time all day.)
You:  Mom come with me I need to show you something.
Me:  Can you just bring it to me?
You:  No, it might be heavy.
Me:  Can you just tell me what it is?
You:  No, it might be something you've never seen before.
Me:  Is it the step stool?
You:  Yeah, it's the step stool.

As I suppose all kids do, you think it's funny to make pee and poop jokes.  My rule of thumb is if you are talking about pee or poop you must need to go potty.  So, one evening at dinner you were told to go sit on the potty because you kept talking about it.

Dad:  Can you go back out to the dinner table and not talk about pee and poop?
You:  I don't know, let's see.

(You try to pick up pliers off shelf in the garage.)
Dad:  No, those aren't to play with.
You:  Well Grandma gave me pliers to pull weeds.
Dad:  They're not safe, you could get hurt.
You:  Grandma had kids once.  She knows what's safe.

You wanted to paint leaves, so I took that quite literally and we went out and gathered leaves from the yard.

Drawing a Christmas tree.

Since I failed to get a birthday card to Grandpa (I know, it's terrible, but I didn't forget, I just had all our stamps packed before I realized it), we decided to make a special treat to welcome their arrival.

Ice skating!  We made it two laps around the outside this year, which is twice what we did last year so it was an improvement.

Another visit to The Living Desert zoo.

Hello giraffes!

Butterfly exhibit.

One of the workers placed this one right in your hands and you held it so gently.  Another butterfly landed right on your hat just after this but it flew away before I could get a picture.

We got to feed carrot sticks to one of the giraffes.  This was so cool, I love giraffes!  We just held it out and it used its long tongue to grab it right from our hands.

Cheetah sisters.

Petting zoo.

Lunchtime.

I love zebras too.

Such a fun day!

Finally, January 20 was the inauguration of President Trump.  Daddy and I have sat in horror watching the events of the past 11 days unfold.  It's scary.  It's really, really scary.  I am confident this is something you will learn about as you grow older and just wanted to give you some reference to what was going on in your life as these events take place.