We rang in the new year with no water. Our pipes had frozen.

The plumber’s orders: One minute of blowing hot air every 20 minutes for 6 hours. It was a very weird way to spend a Sunday. (Thanks for lending us your hairdryer, Morgan!)

The household purge continued. We cleared out feels like the “top layer” of our belongings. Now we feel like we’ve moved onto phase 2 of a deeper cleaning out. I pulled out this suitcase buried on a closet shelf. This is where I used to be where I stored my kids’ emergency kits.

I’ve since consolidated all our emergency belongings into two adult sized backpacks and passed this cute set to a neighbor. We’re not minimalists yet but we’re making some good progress!

Taylor and the kids set up dinner and a book in bed for me on a rough day. I love my people.

Found this book at the library. Clark is a great murder mystery writer, which is why she got some side eye from me for writing a children’s novel:

It was actually pretty good! No murders, but a friendly ghost / relic came back from the past!

My mom took my sister and I out for Boba:

Still undecided about Boba. But the smoothie was delicious.

Junior is stupidly pretty and he doesn’t even carrreeeeee

My dad came over for dinner (missed you mom!) and played some battleship with us:

Daily morning cuddles with my babies. Archer is on top of making sure we have these each morning!

Speaking of Archer, he made the best ever edible craft at preschool!

This little guy got surprisingly good at cracking eggs.

Like, really good!

This year we spent a little money on good snow boots and gloves for the kids. But who needs those lame things when you can sled down snowbanks in bare hands and tennis shoes?!

I made a Russian meal to surprise Taylor one evening. The stroganoff was a flop, but the sharlotka (apple cake) turned out good! At least, the adults thought so. Our kids & their little friends weren’t too impressed 🙂

I think Arrow’s face says it all lol.

The first of many doctor appointments started this month:

Finally, we got to go to a children’s museum with a couple friends. We had a great time.

Not sure what the little boys are admiring up there on the ceiling, but they sure seem amused 🙂

Though January was FOREVER LONG OMG, we made some great memories with it!