March Already?!?!

After writing that huge recap of how my family spent 2011, I made a blogging vow that I would never do that again. Or, that I'd at least make it easier by posting monthly updates. Well, January came and went, and then February sped in and out just as quickly, and now here we are at March 4th, and I have yet to post an update. So, here goes.




*The beginning of January seems so long ago at this point, that it seems weird to be blogging about it now, but I'm going to:)

We rang in out new year with our friends Alan and Tara. We got the boy and the girl looking spiffy, and took off for a night of games, good food, and superb company:)





*Grace started crawling at the start of January. She had been close to crawling for the last month, if not longer, and finally it just clicked. She has been on the move ever since, and has definitely been giving us a run for our money. Her favorites are crawling for dog toys, bowls, bones, etc. If it belongs to the dog, she wants it.

She also started pulling herself up to a standing position within a few days of crawling for the first time. It looks like our next big adventure is walking, and I have some mixed emotions about it. Doesn't it seem like I was just recently posting newborn photos of her? Now, she's crawling and on her way to walking?! How did that happen? I was told by many that it would go by too fast, but I did not even realize what that meant until she was here.

*Grace turned 8 months old on the 8th of January...






and then 9 months in February. (Four more days and she'll be ten months!) Taking the monthly photo continues to be a trial:)



*We took the kids to the Boise Aquarium and made them try on horribly embarrassing costumes (and prayed that no one who tried them on before had lice).



*We celebrated my birthday by having dinner with friends and a game night. The game night didn't end up being much of a game night, but we had a good time nonetheless. I got next to no pictures of the entire night, with the exception of this one:



My husband makes a pretty good cherry chip cake. Ken claims it's because he used the Kitchenaid, which just makes me laugh because it was a boxed cake:)

Let's see, what else have we been up to?

*Grace has started feeding herself and using a sippy cup.






Of course all the finger food has meant extra baths. Somehow she has the ability to get food EVERYWHERE! In her hair, behind her ear, mixed into her eyebrows, in her diaper, behind her knees...EVERYWHERE!

Lucky for us, she loves the bath. I'm looking forward to taking her swimming a lot this summer!

*Fenix went skiing for the first time on a class trip and had a blast. I have to admit I was nervous for him. He tends to overthink stuff and freak himself out, and I was worried he would get there and then get scared. When I told him skiing might be be kind of scary, he replied, "But I can always just ride the ski lift." I had to explain that when you ride the ski lift you have to then ski back down. He did great though!

*Fenix also started doing some weekly chores and earning an allowance. He's been obsessing over a game called "Mindcraft", and is hoping to save up his allowance so that he can buy it. I attempted to take a picture of him on payday, but he was having none of it, so you'll just have to settle for this:



*Grace went to the park and played on the swings for the first time and LOVED it!






*Grace and I had lots of failed attempts at indoor photo shoots. The whole crawling thing makes our limited space in the living room a little tricky.



*I did, however, gather a bunch of really cute photos of Grace and Fenix.

Here are a few of my favorites:










That's pretty much the gist of the start of our year. We're looking forward to March and spring break, and more than that, the arrival of summer. If these next few months go by as quickly as the last, then it will be here in no time!