January 2022: a recap

We spent New Year's Day at home and made sure to have our black-eyed peas and cornbread. Hallie recovered from her tummy bug after a couple of days (and the rest of us squeaked by unscathed, ptL), and we started school back up on the 3rd. Yes, that does sound a little early, but our co-op community was set to start back on the 7th, so it made sense. 

Our church decided to suspend Sunday school and nursery for January, due to higher sickness levels in our community, so we were all in worship together every week (which is both lovely and challenging. Thankfully, they had set up a really nice cry room off the balcony.). 

First Sunday of the new year!

Hallie, particularly, loved the music. Although, in this picture, she looks like she's about to do something to Brynna.

Amiee had an event to attend in Wake Forest and stayed with us, which was a really unexpected mid-week treat!

Claire has been working so hard at her piano this past year...and Hallie has been trying her hardest to keep up.

Claire is a pretty good sport about it.

Hallie is really persistent, though.

Brad took pity on her.

And Claire really is a super excellent big sister.

All of our snow days gave us a lot of opportunity to work some puzzles (not pictured: two big ones that I did):

Lots of reading (read-alouds, yes, but also Reading Lamp Time in their bunks):

I pulled out my mom's brownie recipe, and we made many batches:

Brynn kept watch over the goods.

We also had friends over for dinners (but I didn't get very many pictures):

Lots of time together (and plenty of school, too):

And I grabbed a few pictures from Late Nights (although I didn't seem to get any with Lily):

Press-on nails

Not pictured: colds and illness, scraping ice off of cars, canceled co-op and other events due to said ice... A regular January with lots of regular fun thrown in.

Snow Dayssss

We had a number of snow days in January this year, which was fun! Mostly. If I remember correctly, it snowed (or iced) 3 weekends in a row. That's not particularly common in these parts, so we were all a little excited about the novelty of it.

She dressed herself.

I dare you to try to take that Minion hat away from her.

I KNOW, ok. I know she's looking so grown.

We were all so tickled about her inability to move in her snow gear.

We accidentally got her hat on upside down. Oops.

Didn't end up getting a whole lot of snow this first weekend.

Got a little more accumulation the next weekend.

Ended up staying home and watching church on the live stream, so this was our Sunday sisters picture.

Another Sunday...another snow suit situation

Even in her blanketed chariot, she was pretty skeptical.

Claire very gamely took her on the sled (we have two streets in our little neighborhood, and one of them is particularly good for sledding, thankfully)

These two LOVE to play in the snow.

Group shot!

Hallie and Brynnie are WAY less into the snow, so once Hallie made it to the top of the steps, she was ready to be done.

We drank a lot of hot chocolate, watched movies, and did puzzles around the fire, which was fun but also sounds more idyllic in writing than it sometimes felt in the moment. That said, the girls had an absolute blast and thanked us endlessly for all the fun surrounding our snow days. And for that, I'm grateful.