Random January: I'm finally caught up!

You probably won't find it hard to believe that January is the longest month for us up here in the North. Wisconsin January's are bitterly cold, icy, and often sunless... but we endure, and often enjoy the forced family closeness we find indoors.
January falls perfectly just after Christmas, which around here, is present season. The kids spend most of the month exhausting their new toys, developing new hooligan skills, and generally driving mom to utter madness. It hasn't helped that Theo has been gone all month... Yup, we're darn near insane right about now, ready for temps to warm up sledding conditions, ready for some defrosting, ready for some open windows, ready for some cool late winter walks.

I think December just about killed my desire to take incessant pictures, also. The amount of photos from January is frighteningly scarce. Nevertheless, here they are:

Ben and Hunter are modeling some of the random good they pocketed from Christmas, including "rockstar" sunglasses (Ben asks everytime he puts them on "Mom, do I look like a Rockstar?"), hillbilly teeth, and odd Christmas head fuzzies. the glasses are not pictures here, but you get the idea.

I'll be enjoying the last few months of my 20's here, so I'm getting ready to do some documenting, recalling what I can about this decade in my life. I took this picture the other day to accent the scrapbook page I'm making.

When the temps do rise above, say, 5F, I try and walk around and look at the garden, remembering what I have to look forward to. I love to take Laura out in the snow and get her all riled up. She loooooves the snow so much, so it's not hard. It's hilarious, she had a track in the snow that circles the playhouse, and then makes another loop around the back table.

I've had numerous doctor's appointments this month. On the 31st of December I underwent surgery to remove cysts from my maxillary sinuses. My right sinus was 90% blocked, and my left was 50% blocked. I didn't have to stay in the hospital at all, but I was down-for-the-count for over a week. The anethesia they gave me caused nausea, vomitting, constant dizziness, and intense sleepiness, and it didn't help that Theo left for potential deployment about 4 days after my surgery, and then my brother and his girlfriend Alyssa took a much needed vacation to California. I was left to fend for myself and the kids, despite my surgery recovery kicking my ass! Fortunately, the other preschool mom's are AMAzing! One morning one other mom took the kids for 3 hours! Another morning the same lady watched Hunter while I went to my first follow-up. He had such a good time, he's been talking about it ever since. I took this picture of him all ready to go and play. He's wearing his Shrek backpack, and is adorable!

Hunter has really been enjoying his "Dig-E-Go," or Diego, toys. He already had a little treehouse, but for Christmas he got the train track and other components. He sets up the whole little village and plays for a long, long time.

Ben still loves his pirates from a while ago... he insisted I take his picture, too.

Another bigtime hit has been this fabulous diner! the kids spend hours and hours playing with it!

I found Hunter napping one afternoon like this: gripped to his cuddlies, and even holding BobBob's foot.

This random slice of life kind of picture here makes me happy. This was taken the 1st few day of January before grandma went back to California.

Ben's favorite and most time consuming Christmas presents have been his puzzles. Here he's completed a large one on the living room floor.

I hope you're all having wonderful winters. Expect more up-to-date updates from now on. So glad to be all caught up on the blogging. :)