i can't leave it undone.

i don't think i can stand to pretend that january 2009 never happened or pull off leaving it totally out of the blog. really, i mean...that's a whole month of our lives. and even though we really didn't do anything out of the ordinary, it's every day life and we all survived, so that's blogworthy in my opinion. and since it's my blog and what i say goes, a bits-n-pieces entry works for me! let's see...we had an evening with our smiths. went to chili's for some supper, then came back to our house for game night. we played apples to apples, which seems to be one of our favorites. i bought a kids edition so andrew would have an easier time playing along. he couldn't read the cards yet but the concepts were easier for him to grasp. and he had some help from his daddy, of course. maybe the kids edition was easier for nate? =) as is usually the case, there was also a good bit of guitar hero world tour action. i'm not allowed to post the pics of kathy playing but i will say that it was quite entertaining. i disappointed my sons by refusing to be pat benatar. someday i'll show 'em what i can do. one of my favorite wii moments of the evening was andrew and blake doing "beat it". andrew didn't want to sing he said, "i just want to do the beat it beat it." cracked me up. anyway, that's what he did. blake did the rest and andrew did the "beat it beat it". so funny.

max and his buddy holden had a sleepover. i think they'd do this every weekend if we'd let them.

we made fleece blankies. we've had this fleece for a very long time, waiting to arrange a time with our sweet friend gloria to get together to make them since she's the fleece blankie queen. we just decided to wing it, novices that we were. we set up blankie production in the family room floor and away we went. the creasy men are now pro's at this. even ended up making one for greg and a marshall one for my cousin bob, since he looked so longingly at blake's when we were together at the beach. (that trip is another blog entry entirely!)

we had snow snow snow and more snow! and then after that it snowed! and boy, did people ever complain....not me, i LOVE snow. our boys got snow days and max had a couple of days that were either "no heat" days or "the power's out" days. we watched it snow, we ate snow, we rolled around in snow, we threw snow at each other, we shoveled snow...i still love it. can't make me stop. seriously, some people get so grouchy about cold and about snow. i always love snow...don't always love the cold, but if it's not cold it won't snow. and at least snow gives the cold a reason to be cold. and if we don't have to deal with cold and other things we don't like so much, how in the world can we truly appreciate the warmth and the good and beautiful things that come with spring? let's get a grip and keep things in perspective, for goodness' sake. =)

when we lived in columbus, we met so many wonderful people. our church there, karl road baptist, was packed with amazing folks who became our family. alan and chrisann goad and their girls were one family that moved into our hearts and stayed put. that sounds pretty hallmarkish, but it's the truth. we've visited with them a time or two since moving from columbus - they don't live there anymore either - but greg has really been missing alan and the time they got to spend together one-on-one. close friendship is SO important. alan worked a trip here into some other traveling he was doing for work. such a blessing for them both! they spent a lot of time out and about together, blake and luke got to "re-meet" alan, max got to meet him in the first place, and we all got some good relaxed time together. we actually got more time than we bargained for because of the weather/airport situation. it was a really good visit. next time chrisann needs to come though. apparently men don't document their every activity with digital proof that it happened. so i made them pose.

i had a birthday in january. #44...wow. that used to sound pretty old, but i'm not feeling so old, so it must not be. celebrated the morning at starbucks (duh..) with a big happy birthday venti and a scone and lots of talking with kathy. from there, pretty much went straight to famous dave's for lunch with greg and my mom and dad. by later in the afternoon, my self wasn't feeling so great so i spent the evening at home while the rest of my people went to church for awhile. i had a good birthday anyway.

i already mentioned that blake and luke were in all-state choir this year. i wanted to include some pics of them with their choirs. blake was in all-state chamber choir and luke was in the jr. high choir. he's in 9th grade in high school but many schools around the state are still on the jr. high plan so it ends up being the "jr. high" choir. whatever you call them, they sounded great. blake's choir did, too. we are really reaaaaaally loving our boys' involvement in music!

one of these days i hope to blog our january trip to sunset beach to visit my sweet grandmother. i don't even know where to begin on that one. and i have an absolute TON of pictures. it may be slide show material. even though january was pretty much regular life, it was busy busy busy. and busy can sure make a body tired. =)