January

So, we've successfully made the transition from a wonderful Christmas break back into "real-life." We did have tears the first morning back, though - the sense of dread was so real :). Zelle finished up her Waterford basketball season. They did pretty well, winning a lot of their games, and she had a good time, but they were terrible! It was funny to watch at times...Abby started cello with her music class. Grandma was nice enough to take her to the place to rent her cello, and she loved that! Suse and Lu continue to be happy campers most days heading off to school and are generally really fun, pleasant kids. They are at such magical, great ages. I would love to freeze ages 5-7, so I'm just trying to enjoy them as much as possible. Natalie has been so great about bed rest. She gets frustrated and pulls my finger trying to get me to get up and do things with her, or really wants me to pick her up sometimes. On the whole, though, she goes most entire days without any meltdowns, and I'm really amazed at how well she's handled all of this at her age. Her verbal skills are really taking off, and the girls are starting to have a lot of fun making her copy things. Abby loves to have her say, "s'up?, peace, yo", and all kinds of great things. She also knows tons of songs and loves to sing them. Grandma has been taking Nats and Suse to a Music Together class Friday mornings, which is great. They loved the last session, so when Mom asked what she could do to help, I thought this would be great because I was really bummed about not being able to take them to one more class of it before the baby comes, plus they just need a couple of things out of the house!

I'm 30 weeks with this pregnancy tomorrow, so we're making significant progress. I've gotten a couple of steroid shots to help the baby's lung development go faster, and things are going well. Every week further I get is great. Another month would be really great. I'm even in a bit of a routine with my couch life. It's frustrating at times, but other times I love the way I'm able to be totally available to the girls - that's for sure the best part. It's pretty interesting and good in many ways to be forced to slow down in life and simplify a ton. My family, sisters, ward and school people have all been great. I've had so many nice meals brought in, care packages of books, sudoku, snacks brought in, offers for play dates, and even people bringing lunch in and visiting for a while. It's hard to have so many people disrupt their lives and help you and you sometimes feel a little dumb, but it's also pretty amazing and wonderful to see how kind people are and how much they love to help.

Happy cold, gray January here! Inversion stinks and this has been a pretty long, cold month, but we had sun and rain today - no snow, so a little warmer, and I find myself already ready for spring - ha ha ha!