The Rest of January

January seemed to fly by this year, while normally it seems to drag. (Maybe the unseasonably warm weather helped?!!)

Earlier this month we had our foyer, hallways, and living room painted, so we had to say out of the house for a couple of days. I had a super cute lunch date both days! We sure love half-day kindergarten and our afternoons together!

Their school had a Fine Arts Showcase and all elementary students had their artwork displayed.

The boys started Upward basketball this month too. They are in different leagues, which means we spend hours at the gym Friday nights and Saturday mornings. :)

We took advantage of the warmer temperatures and walked across the Big Four Bridge one day.

The playground in Jeffersonville is always a hit.

Luke and Colin played school one afternoon. 

For his 100th day of school, Luke decorated his cape with 100 (green and orange- his favorite!) pom poms. He decided how he wanted it to look and told me where to squirt the glue!

He was begging to get the guinea pig for his birthday...um, No! We are at Feeder's Supply every single week as it is buying crickets for our anoles. No more pets in this house!

"Hi furry little dude!"

Shorts and sandbox play in January...yes!

Caleb's class led chapel on the 26th and he was the shepherd. He spent so much time memorizing his lines and he nailed them. His love of public speaking always amazes me. One kid was sick and Caleb even had so change up his lines the morning of!

I love Amazon Prime and my ability to not have to drive around and get things for a costume. And, something tells me this won't be the last time the boys need a costume like that for school. 

BrickUniverse

On January 7th, the boys and I spent all afternoon at BrickUniverse, a Lego fan convention. We walked around and saw incredible Lego displays, took part in Lego challenges, and did a bit of shopping. The boys just had to score some of the exclusive minifigs. ;)

One area was dedicated to World War II and the displays were incredible...

The challenges were fun too. We were given a theme and had to build something to represent that theme in five minutes. While our creations never won, we still had a blast!

Snow Day!

January 5th was our first snow day this school year!

 It was one of those days that they call school off before there was even a single snow flake...but by late morning, we had an inch or two.

That afternoon we took the boys outside to sled and play in the snow and they were crazy!

Little brother called it quits when he got too cold so we had some snuggle time warming up.

Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas break and have all been a little sad to say goodbye to Betty, our elf, and see the tree and Christmas lights come down. (Setting our alarm clocks tonight will be the worse, though!)

Over break the boys decorated gingerbread houses

and made sugar cookies.

On the 22nd, we celebrated at Grandma Kathy's house. The boys had fun with their cousins Ava and baby Claire. 

On Christmas Eve-Eve we celebrated at Grandma and Grandaddy's house. One of the highlights of the night was everyone playing Caleb's "Pie Face" game. :)

On Christmas Eve we made two stops to celebrate with two sets of extended family, but I didn't take many pictures...which apparently was a theme for this Christmas. :(

The Hume cousins showed up with their ugly Christmas sweaters!

The family pictures are always a little awkward, as there are usually about 20 or so people watching in the foyer. 

Christmas morning came and the boys' smiles were priceless.

That evening we went to Daddy Joe's house to celebrate with the Fowler cousins. Luke and Reed had the best time playing together!

The next day we stayed home ALL DAY (except for a quick trip to Game Stop!) and the boys played. Since it was so nice they started on the mining sets they got in their stockings. 

The boys love having dinner and a movie in the playroom so they asked for TV trays for Christmas. They were so, so happy with such a simple, low key evening!

The next day PeePaw, Grandma Beth, Uncle Matt, and Hallie Girl came to town. We had two more Christmas celebrations, but I failed in taking anymore pictures.

We did go to Bardstown one afternoon to have lunch and shop, and Caleb decided to go with us. I had to take this picture, as he was just looking so grown up that day!

Our last celebration came on New Year's Day as we had the privileged of seeing our sweet cousin Caroline get baptized. We are so proud of her!

Visiting Vail

Creed and I spent four glorious days in Vail, Colorado, to kick off our Christmas break. 

Creed actually planned the entire trip, and I must say that he did a fantastic job! We stayed in Vail Village at the Austria House, and it is probably one of my favorite hotels that I have ever stayed in, hands down. He also had us fly into Vail-Eagle airport instead of Denver, which ended up being perfect because the day we landed, a major winter storm hit the area and it would have been a rough drive from Denver. Eagle-Vail actually shut down about six hours after we flew in, so we were lucky with the timing too!

Since Creed has a pass for all the Vail resorts, he skied all four days, while I only skied Saturday and Sunday. We  got lucky because the winter storm dropped 10 inches of snow on Vail, so Saturday was perfect conditions...except for the fact that it was six degrees. ;) It was also cloudy and windy...so we were cold!

Sunday it was beautiful, though, so we took some pictures. But, don't let the blue sky fool you...it was about 15 degrees that day.

One night we had dinner in Lionshead, which was just down from the village.

We were thankful for Vail's convenient transportation system because the wind chill that night was around 15 degrees below zero. 

We were there for the tree lighting in Vail Village

and were sure to take a picture in front of the iconic covered bridge. 

While Creed skied the final day, I walked around and did a little shopping. I even had time to just sit and read an entire book. :)

Because of the clear skies that evening, the views from our plane were incredible. You can see Vail's airport tucked between the mountains.

We also flew over Beaver Creek, Vail, and Breckenridge resorts. That's Vail...

While it was picturesque, it was also very turbulent...like turbulent enough that the pilot wouldn't let the flight attendants up until we passed the front range of the mountains, which took almost an hour! 

I am so thankful that we were able to get away for a few days to such a beautiful place. And, especially thankful for Grandmom, Grandpa, and Aunt Paige for keeping the boys!