Week In Review ~ January 25

On Monday, my sister and I drove up to spend the day with some of my family. My grandma hasn’t been doing very good and we wanted to spend some time visiting with her. It was a joy to visit with her and grandpa!

This girl is a little bookworm just like her siblings! I adore that she is regularly found engrossed in a pile of books!

We have been struggling with her taking her clothes off, including her diaper! This happens all around the house but especially in her bed. The results are usually far less than awesome. After much trial and error, this is the best solution we’ve come up with: jammies backward with a shirt over top. She hasn’t figured out how to take a shirt off over her head. Yet. This pictures proves, she’s still trying to outsmart us, but so far this has kept her from taking her clothes and diaper off completely!

We worked on colors this week!

This guy is a reading machine! This week he finished his book list for first grade and is begging for another list.

Tuesday’s date day was for me and Allie. She requested that we play nail salon and we did her toenails, complete with a Strawberry Shortcake lotion foot massage. 🙂

Neena came to visit on Wednesday. She brought lunch and a Neena Box! We’re spoiled!

Allie and I rowed Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey this week. From this sweet book: “Mr. and Mrs. Mallard were bursting with pride. It was a great responsibility taking care of so many ducklings, and it kept them very busy.” I love Robert McCloskey and this is one of my favorites.

We spent Wednesday afternoon exploring the trails at a local nature center. It was a beautiful day and fun to be outside as a family!

Four of my favorite people.

Lillyanna ate snow for the first time thanks to daddy teaching her. 🙂

The whole family ventured to the police station on Friday afternoon so Ben and I could get some fingerprinting done for our dossier. Yay! One step closer!

I got to spend Friday evening with this precious guy and his older siblings. It was fun to spend time with them without my kids there hogging them! 😉

Saturday morning we did some cleaning as a family. It was nice to have happy, enthusiastic helpers! The kids love using this child-size Norwex dusting mitt and I love that they don’t have to spray anything! 🙂

Daddy took the older kids outside to help them build a snow fort. They worked hard and had so much fun!

Here, he’s planning to throw those snow balls at me!

Handsome hubby, great daddy.

My goofy girl eating “snow dogs”.

Layer 1 of the snow “bricks”, complete.

While the big kids played outside, little miss and I played inside. Love this picture of her and her baby!

Sunday we spent the day with my family. It was a wonderful celebration of my grandma’s 83rd birthday and a bit of a family reunion. This is a picture of my grandma (my dad’s mom) with all of her great-grandchildren. Precious moments!

Week In Review ~ January 18

Our dear friends had dinner with us Monday night after we hadn’t seen them for a long time! It was so good to see them and their sweet baby! “Awww! Mom! She’s holding my finger!”

The three oldest had dentist appointments Tuesday morning. We LOVE our dentist! They do such a great job with the kids and the kids seriously love going.

Cody grew a mustache! He kept telling me, “Mom! I’m too old for school!”

Aunt Sherri and Allie after Allie’s belated birthday shopping trip. Her favorite finds: dress up clothes, a microphone that plays Frozen songs she can sing along with and salon tools. This is one happy girl with one of our favorite ladies.

This week for Five in a Row we read Katy and the Big Snow. I love this time with my girl!

A dress-up dress and beauty tools. Although these are Allie’s new toys, Lillyanna has pretty much taken over.

Cody wanted to learn how to make coffee this week. He made coffee for me one morning and for Ben one morning. I could get used to this!

The girls are getting a lesson in playing checkers. This is one of Ethan’s favorites right now. Although, he’s pretty happy playing any game and he’s always looking for someone to play one with him.

This was our science experiment crew on Friday afternoon. We’re loving going through Apologia’s Young Explorer Series on Human Anatomy and Physiology. This week’s experiment had us testing for Vitamin C in fruits and vegetables.

Buddies! Our Community Group met at our house Friday night. We love these people God has placed us with and enjoyed a great discussion on the importance of a community of faith surrounding us as we venture on this journey of faith. We need each other for accountability and encouragement and so much more. What a blessing to be a part of the body of Christ!

My brother’s daughter got to spend the day with us on Saturday! What a little sweetie. She’s super laid back, serious and mature and I loved that she took her nap on my lap. When I took this picture, she kept telling Lillyanna not to put things in her mouth. Ha! I don’t think Lilly took her very seriously!

Owning a home is the American Dream…until a water leak happens. Ben cut into the ceiling on Saturday afternoon to access some pipes. Let’s just say, the project is still in progress but at least we can use our water now! So thankful for a handy hubby!

Ben was able to go to Arenacross dirt bike racing on Saturday night. He loves this kind of thing! Good times with a good friend.

With Ben gone on Saturday night, I was happy to have quiet, alone time at the end of the day for a mini pedicure and an episode of Call the Midwife.

Week In Review ~ January 11

This past week we dove back into school after three weeks off for the holidays. Whew! I was ready. My kids, however, weren’t as ready. By God’s grace, we survived. It turned out to be a blessing in disguise to have the van in the shop all week because it saved us from exposing our family to the flu epidemic forced us to stay home and get back into school wholeheartedly. We’ve had some crazy cold temperatures and lots of snow here, so it’s been a week of good, old fashioned family time, learning and fun.

Monday morning and we’re back to our school routine, Diet Coke and all.

Guy time.

Some of the books I’m working my way through.

We have more than our fair share of static around here! Ugh.

Bummer for her, even princesses have to learn how to read.

Back to the books. So proud of him! He’s motivated, responsible, smart, deep thinking, enthusiastic about learning and more serious than any 8-year-old should be. This kid is going places!

This week for Five In A Row we read The Adventures of Peter Rabbit.

She tells me her favorite thing to do is play salon. Love!

Keeping indoor fun interesting on a day too cold to go outside.

Allie’s five-year-old well visit went well after much dread and drama! Praise God she is healthy and growing!

We have been working on adoption training and paperwork quite a bit this week! Thankful for bonding time and progress!

Imaginations have been in full swing as these three have played, shoveled trails and constructed snow forts. So nice to see them get fresh air, work together and get along!

So thankful for the big caramel corn order I made this week!

Ben and the older kids cleaned snow a couple times this week for ourselves and our neighbor across the street. The rest of us watched. 🙂

This is how I wish I spent the whole week!

Ben has been battling the elements this week and even picked up an extra shift on Saturday morning! Praise God, he stayed safe and that he’s willing to work extra hours even when it’s crazy cold and snowy!

Baby friends!

Big kid friends!

A fun night (Adults only! Yay!) with our Sunday School class for our annual white elephant Christmas party. Lots of laughter and good conversation. We are so thankful for this group of people!

Week In Review ~ January 4

Monday night date night! We had Olive Garden thanks to a Christmas gift card and my sister’s family hanging out with our kids!

On Tuesday, Jen and I drove up North to help pack Grandpa and Grandma’s apartment up for their move to a new apartment! This is what the rag tag team looked like at the end of the day.

We spent New Year’s Eve with friends and learned a new card game called Wizard.

Ringing in the New Year with a kiss!

Happy 2015 from the Hodgson Family!

We took the kids shopping with their Christmas gift cards to Five Below. We had never shopped there before and they loved it!

On our way to church today, our van started acting up. A belt broke and we tried to turn around and head home, but we ended up broke down on the side of the road. Here’s to hoping for a cheap and easy fix!

After we were rescued from the side of the road by our sweet brother-in-law, we cuddled up on the couch with a cup of coffee and some books. If you read them a book called Pinkalicious, they’ll want to bake cupcakes when you’re done…

 

Ben and Cody went to Cody’s first concert this evening! Here they are at Winter Jam!