January Blah

January is a month of Blah. The excitement of Christmas is over, it is freezing cold outside, but you can't buy a snowsuit because the spring clothing line is out in stores taunting you that spring is still three months away. And you wonder if January will ever end.

So when you sit down in your trusted hair stylist chair, and you look out the window to gray skies and cold winds, you say "lets do something exciting". And this is what happens all because of January.





I will say with my new change I have had a lift in spirits, and now when I look out the window I see a bit of blue sky between the clouds and snowflakes dancing in the warm winter breezes. And I know January will end soon.

And on a side note, Mike has been asking me to dye my hair dark for years. So Mikey I hope you like it. I did it for you and January.

Rub a Dub Dub, Two Kids in a Sink

At eight months Henry has finally decided that he will eat some real food. Of course, after feeding Henry he usually needs a bath. The other night he was such a mess that we just put him straight in the sink, rather than trying to hold him out at arms length and carrying him upstairs to the bathroom.

Isn't he the cutest? Look at those little, underdeveloped shoulders...

Henry loves to splash,

and loves bath time, where ever it is.

Megan heard the fun and wanted to be a part of it. We had to intervene in the her attempts to clean Henry with the bottle scrubber.

Like the proverbial camel who sticks his nose in your tent during a sandstorm, Megan eventually took over Henry's bath entirely.

P.S. I will be gone for the next month, and this is Kim's first post as my replacement blogger (this should really be her blog. If you look back in the archive to our early days, you'll see that I used to pretend to be her, because she was supposed to take over once I made it.) She will be traveling too, but if you haven't seen anything in the next two weeks, call and bug her. Every week without a post is a week we won't remember ten years from now....

All the Christmas you can handle

Cory, Alisha, Noel and Ellie came to visit. Christmas hijinks ensued:

Megan rocking out in the family picture at the temple visitor center.


Cory pontificating about something. I'm sure he was telling Noel not to trust the fat cats up on Capitol Hill.


The kids loved the National Arboretum.


We ate lots of good food.


And didn't even pay attention to what the kids were eating.




Christmas isn't complete without a nativity scene.

It's always a gamble whether or not the kids are going to react appropriately for the camera when they're opening a gift. This one turned out ok.

It is truly the giving season.


After a week of pictures, Meg was a little tired of smiling for the camera.


Like his dad, Henry refused to read the owner's manual on his new toothbrush.




We got a repeat performance of Jenny Oaks Baker at the temple.

By the way, unless you can make a good counter-argument, I've decided that the lyrics to "I Saw Three Ships" are completely nonsensical.

P.S. Many thanks to our kind neighbors Paul and Joelle who let the Duclos brood stay at their place while they were away. This really helped preserve all of our sanity.