January in Whirl

January was spent mostly just surviving. We ended up heading to Walmart around 9 at night on New Year's Eve to buy more paint. Then we came home and let the girls eat a dinner of hors d’oeuvres on the living room floor while finishing their redbox movie. Daniel painted while I watched the excitement on TV and worked on Christmas cards.

After a week of painting and dealing with basement flooding (friends, not ours), we decided to take advantage of our last day off and visit the Hands On Museum. We didn't get out of here too early, but the girls had a great time showing Daddy all the cool displays. I was glad I finally got a picture of the outside of the building, it is pretty cool. I couldn't get away from the sun though. We didn't end up taking very many pictures, because we were having too much fun.

 

Myka's favorite spot in the museum, in the ambulance.

 

As we slowly moved the girls back into their room after painting, we decided we needed to purge a little. This is a picture of our "before" pile of stuffed animals. My girls LOVE stuffed animals and therefore we have ended with quite a few. I was impressed with how cooperative they were with actually getting rid of a bunch, although we did have a clash of opinions several times.

 

This was the end product - a few on their beds and this shelf full that Daniel built for them. It feels good to be rid of so many, but I have a hard time when that is what they want to buy when the have a chance.

 

School got cancelled the middle of the month because it was "too cold". It was the first time we have ever been thankful for the frigid temps here in MI. Daniel had woke Nora up before I got down to check the computer. I found out it was currently -13 (-27 with the wind chill) and school was cancelled. We told Nora to go back to bed and she was excited to get a lounge day. The girls spent several hours playing play doh and all helped make this pizza creation. We didn't want anything to do with the cold and stayed inside all day long.

 

We were excited for Daniel to have Civil Right's Day off and took full advantage of it. I had a Dr's appointment in the morning that was up by the mall. So we took the family and went to Build-a-Bear to spend some of Nora and Myka's birthday money. Nora and Kyla dressed up their bears and got them all ready to bring along. Myka picked out a cute bunny and had a fun time finding clothes and accessories for her (a phone was a must!). I really wish I would have gotten a picture of all of them with their bears. After letting the girls play awhile at the mall, we went to IKEA for lunch and to let the girls play in Smaland. We have been promising Myka that she could go to the playland at IKEA when she got good at keeping her panties dry. We have been overdue on fulfilling that promise for a couple of months now, so it was time. I was able to give Daniel the grand tour while the girls played. Everyone was pretty wiped out after that, but I insisted we go to Costco on our way home since it had been a couple of months and we don't get up that direction very often. It was so much fun to have a fun family day shopping and playing. Daniel also took the boys to the Scout Klondike this month, but I'll have to put that in another post since this one has gotten longer than planned.