January Life Lately

January was a month of abundant blessings for us. Of course, there were hard and long days, but as I look back at this past month I can’t help but be extremely thankful for the Lord’s rich blessings and provisions.

We started out the month meal planning! Tera loves to “help” me! I plan to do a blog post soon on how I menu plan and grocery shop! I’m excited about it!

January 1st was a GORGEOUS day around here, and we decided to go for a walk at one of our small hiking trails. It’s completely flat and about a .7 mile loop, so it’s PERFECT for Tera! She loves being outside!

Family time and fresh air…it doesn’t get much better than this!

Tera and Theo reading together….so sweet!!!

I know this is an extremely unattractive picture of me, but look at that sweet boy!!!!

We have thoroughly enjoyed every single day of this mild winter!! Unfortunately, its not so mild this week. This was Kiah’s first ride in the stroller!

I just can’t stop staring at him!!

On January 5th, Theo’s Grandpa passed from earth into eternity. We are so thankful that we were able to attend his funeral.

Kiah drove part of the way….

JUST KIDDING. We were eating lunch.

William Male impacted a lot of lives on this earth.

Kiah is one of Grandpa’s 27 great-granchildren. He was passed all around all weekend!

We forgot Tera’s coat for the high-of-14-degree day. Parent fail.

The funeral was beautiful and held in this chapel at Grace Village. The kids did fairly well considering it was right at naptime after a crazy weekend with family. There were many tears shed, but also much laughter and celebration.

For some strange reason, Tera’s bedroom doesn’t have a heat source. Last winter we bought a fancy space heater that regulates the temperature and has a timed setting. Since Tera was sleeping in the crib, it worked out. However, it made us a little more nervous since she could climb out of bed and touch the heater. Also…it was really driving up our energy bills to have a space heater plugged in all night long, so we moved Tera into our room. She sleeps in the corner on her mattress and LOVES it. I have recently started to work with her to learn how to make her bed. Obviously, this one was me showing her how it’s done hahaha.

King Kiah turned 3 months old this month.

He’s so chill. Tera decided that he needed every single bib we own on top of him as a blanket. Don’t worry, I was sitting right there the whole time. Besides, he clearly enjoyed it!

The weather this month has been all sorts of insane. I took the two following pictures within minutes of each other:

It was super stormy and then the sun just came out.

Tera loves to help Mommy in the kitchen!

Theo received a phone call that he was accepted into the police academy! This is a BIG deal, so we celebrated! I got him a balloon and hid his acceptance letter from him until dinnertime. We made pizza and rejoiced at the Lord’s provision for our family! You can read more about why, when and how by reading this post.

Kiah loves to sit in his bumbo seat! If he is being held, he likes to stand straight up and just talk and talk!

And Tera loves to help me with the dishes! Wherever I am, she is also there. I have to constantly remind myself of what a gift this is, not a hindrance. But man, oh man…does it take forever to get stuff done!

We celebrated Theo’s new job by taking some vacation time and heading down to Florida to visit my Grandparents! We had a lovely time and it was SO nice to have a break in this Ohio weather. I have a whole post on our Florida trip coming up tomorrow, so stay tuned on how we saved money and made it happen!

The last thing I did this month was drastically cut my hair. I was desperate for a hair cut. It was looking ratty and I was extremely tired of it. I never do anything to my hair and Kiah is at the age where he has started to grab fistfuls of it. Plus, I just needed a change. I jokingly asked Theo what he thought of me getting blue, and he was all for it. I loved the idea, so I went for it!