January

January came and went with lightening speed. I thought I would try and do a better job documenting our lives and take my mom's challenge of a photo a day. Then at the end of each week make a digital scrapbook page. It has not happened yet, but I did get many more moments documented with the camera.
Mike took this photo. Somehow he never made it up to our room for movie night. I watched Planet Earth with the kids. I think Elsie made it through very little of the movie. Lucas crashed. Then Ariel and myself. Isaac lasted the longest. Mike said when he came to our room at 10 pm, this is what it looked like. This is the first time all 4 kids fell asleep in our bed. If we had a king bed maybe Mike could have left us all there. He spent half an hour putting everyone in their own beds. I love that Isaac put a pillow on top of Ariel and just lay right on top of her.
Ariel LOVES to play with the kids silverware. I guess I should call it cutlery. She can easily spend 30 minutes playing in this drawer. It still baffles me. Two weeks ago she took some spoons to her friend's house for a playdate. Her friend was not as excited as Ariel was.
This photo is for Haley. Ariel is saying, "Peace out, dude!"
Ariel and Elsie got this little kitchen for Christmas. We scored this table and chairs at an after Christmas sale at Target. As soon as we brought them home, Ariel wanted a tea party with Elsie. Elsie did her best to be accommodating.
Mike and Ike having a great time at Isaac's first pine wood derby.
Mike spent most of his free moments the end of January dreaming up a perfect pinewood derby car design. The boys got this bouncy ball maker for Christmas. It is really cool. You can spend hours making balls that really bounce. Unfortunately, a few days ago Ariel dumped out most of the powder needed to make the balls and we will only be able to make a few more.

Elsie ate solids for the first time. So far she is not too impressed with oatmeal, rice cereal, avocado or bananas.
Ariel set up for a picnic lunch in the living room.

Isaac tested and was promoted to a yellow belt on the 23rd. He blew us away with his execution of nearly flawless form. He does not take Tae Kwon Do as seriously as Lucas. Lucas had many sleepless nights leading up to his yellow belt test. The day of his test, Lucas' stress level was almost too much to endure. With Isaac, you would not have even known he was testing.

We finished the night of the 23rd off watching Mike play in the first annual Docs vs Jocks charity fundraiser. It was a great time. The competitive drive among the men in the gym was so strong it was palpable. The Docs had the lead at half time but were not able to pull off a win.