A Random Slow January

This January has been slow. The weather has been cold, so we haven't done much outside and we just haven't gone anywhere. We pretty much read a lot. Wally has really gotten into the Magic Tree House book series. Joel tried reading the first book to Wally in the beginning on January on his Kindle. I thought he was crazy trying because Wally has a hard time sitting still and there are not many pictures in chapter book. I was wrong! Boy was I wrong. Since that first book, we have read through book 13 and are headed to the library for more. Luckily, there are over 40 books in the series and the librarian recommended another series for when we are done. Our baby is growing up!

Speaking of babies...here is our original baby. Scouty Babe is over 8 years old now! And, in her old age, she is getting braver...other people have actually sighted her when they visit! Wally loves to make "chocolate fudge cake" (aka any chocolate cake type thing). He is getting to be a really good helper and is learning about fractions with the measuring cups.

He does still cook like Wally though, resulting in a lot of clean-up and laundry!

Maybe I am biased (OK, I know I am), but the kid is a genius! He is always building things with his toys and mixing his different toys together to build new things. A couple weeks ago, he called me over to show me what he built. Using tinker toys, Legos, and marbles, he rigged up a thing that he could put marbles on one side of the "wall" in middle and then use a "hammer" made of tinker toys to hit another marble into the opposite side of the wall to make the first marbles go flying. I tried to get a video, but of course it didn't work out...Engineering, here comes Wally!

For something different, we actually went out to dinner one night last week. None of us had ever been to an IHOP that we could remember, so we tried it out. Wally got a huge pancake that he could decorate like a face with fruit and yogurt. It was a lot of fun, but awfully expensive for pancakes! Notice his sweater. How cute can you get? Some friends from church gave it to Wally as they didn't need it anymore.

Drum roll....My first quilt! I know you all have been excited to see the wonderful creation that is my first quilt. Being Grandma Wynja's favorite granddaughter should come with a certain set of skills, right? Well, I'm pretty sure they got passed to Katie through some weird case of lateral transfer, but any how, I made a quilt! Since Wally and I made fleece tie blankets for Brother, Sister, and Wally, he's been wanting to make a quilt out of the 4-inch squares that we cut from the corners of the blankets. Last weekend, I finally tried. I got better and figured out a few tricks, but really, how good can a quilt be that starts with very-much-not-square squares made out of fleece? I kind of like it because it is made up of parts of the blankets for all 3 of my kids. After I was all done and the sewing machine was put away, Wally pointed out that I forgot the pocket in the middle. (A pocket??!?!??) So, out came everything and I sewed a big Cubs pocket in the middle from fabric left over from Joel and Wally's scarves. Well, Firedog is happy with his quilt (as is Wally). Maybe someday, like 20 some years from now, I will get into quilting in my spare time!

Wally has played with shaving cream a couple times at school recently and has been begging me to get some so that he could play at home. This past week, I swear the kid has grown up a lot. I used to hate taking him shopping because he would wander away and ask constantly for things and throw fits if I didn't give in (though in reality, I think he has always been pretty good). But, last week, it was actually fun and helpful having him there. He helped me find stuff and would ask if something was on sale before asking me if we could get it. If I said no, he would say, "Maybe it will be on sale next time." There were some other examples of him being a big kid too, but I can't think of it. Anyway, I bought him the shaving cream and he's had a lot of fun with it. So has Dad...

Today we were trying to figure out what to do, and Joel said, "Well, it is as warm as it is going to get for a while (aka about 32 degrees), so lets go for a walk in the park. We went to Hickory Hill and took the dogs...stressful because there were other people who dared to bring their dogs to the park when we did! It was nice to get outside though.

A rare picture of Joel and I. Wally is getting good with the camera!

After hiking, we played Play-doh. Wally had a great imagination. The last thing he worked on was building a bear cave and grizzly bears. He then wrote a song about grizzly bears...

Here is me and Wally doing the Grizzly bear dance.

Tonight, Wally told me that he loves me more than God loves me. Wow! That makes a mom feel good!