January Wrap Up

Aw January.  

So cold.

So long.

We made it through and even had a few outings.  My favorite part of January is the excuse to just stay home and snuggle up with a good book.  My not so favorite part is feeling like we can't go anywhere because it is so freezing cold!  Bitter sweet.

So here are the pictures for January.

The very beginning of January I took all four kids to Costco.  It's the one shopping place I can handle happily with all four kids by myself.

Isak and Kira love these "treasure boxes" that Grandma and Grandpa Nyborg gave to them for Christmas.  The boxes have a combination lock on them so it keeps their treasures safe from some two year olds.  :)

Before the frigid cold weather began we went for a walk one evening.  Noah and Dad were slow.  That's why they aren't in the picture.

Sofie loves to keep up with the big kids.

Also, a warmer day.  Sunday pictures.

A quick ride around the patio.  Seriously, two minutes because it was still pretty chilly outside.

I bought this purple Kix cereal and it was gone in two days.  The kids loved it, especially Noah.  He ate the most.  He loved that Paw Patrol was on the box. 

Isak built his 700+ piece Star Wars Lego set - Star Fighter Ship.  He was pretty proud of himself.  He's built it twice.

He made this Star Wars fighter too, out of his imagination.

Kira made this marble run without instructions.

You know, just having fun with pillows on their heads.  Kira and Noah were fighting over the "spot."

They found the halloween buckets in the closet.  Then Sofie insisted on wearing her bee costume.  And then they "trick or treated" all day.

Kira with her missing tooth.  It's finally growing in now though!  Yay!

Taking some time to read together.  It's one of my favorite things to see them do.

Isak photo bombed Noah's "cheese" with sunglasses on.

Sofie wears here bee costume on a regular basis now.  I may have to buy other costumes for her birthday.  She melts her daddy's heart.

Noah LOVES to ride on Daddy's back.  Nels barely walks in the door and Noah quickly asks for a ride.

Noah looks so tiny on Nels's back.  Sofie and the rest of the kids usually follow them around hoping and waiting for their turn.

Working on a puzzle together.

Kind of sad, kind of exciting...no more high chairs in our house.  Cleaned them up and put them downstairs for now.  Sofie and Noah eat in the normal chairs now.  It's gone okay.  Each of them have fallen off the chairs a few times, but they are getting better and staying put.  :)

Kira bought this awesome lego van with her gift card from Grandma and Grandpa Swensen.  She loved shopping for it online and ordering it from Amazon.  It was fun to get in the mail too.

Isak bought this 100 piece space puzzle with his gift card from G & G Swensen.  He also liked shopping for it.  He left it half finished when he went to school.  So Noah finished it for him!  I was so surprised.  Noah loves puzzles too.

Naps.  They are hit or miss around our house now days.  Noah has missed a few.  He likes going to get the big kids from the bus.  See the bus down the road?

But sometimes it's super cold when we go to get them and that's not so fun.  Look at that grimace!

Pretty snowfall.

Lots of snow.  Look at the height on the swings.

Our mailbox is almost buried.

All this snow.  But the whole month it was not snowman building snow.  So sad.  But when it was somewhat warm...at least 25 degrees...the kids went out to play in it.  Although, they didn't last very long.  Noah tried...

Sofie is a pretty good sport about it.

They were so cute trying to figure out the mittens and snow.

And walking in the snow.

Isak and Nels tried to roll some snow together.  It just wouldn't stick.

The baby twins love watching dad snowblow the driveway.

One Monday, school was cancelled due to weather conditions.  So we took the kids sledding...the weather wasn't that bad.  So here we are loaded up in the car with all of our gear on.

Noah was pretty nervous about it.

We went to Langum Park.  A nice hill and a pretty view of the Fox River.  Here's a before picture of Isak and Kira.

Sofie and Noah did not know what to think!

I love this picture.  They are just not sure about this sledding idea.

Here's the hill and the river.

I went to down with Kira and then I went down with Kira and held Sofie on my lap.  It was a bit cold (about 30 degrees) and there was a wind...So as we went down the hill icy snow sprayed up into our faces.  Kira and Sofie did NOT like that.  Sofie was sooooo mad!!!

Nels took Noah down twice.  I went down with Isak twice and he went down by himself four times.  Sofie, Noah and Kira were all crying so Nels took them to the car while Isak and I went down one last time.  Isak and I had a pretty great time.  The others...not so much.

No worries.  Hot chocolate helped.  Their first time having it.

Nels and I went on a date!  Oh yeah. 😀 It was -8 degrees in the morning.  Later that afternoon it just dumped snow.  It was really pretty to walk through the falling snow on our date.  We also ate Burger Local on third street.  Looooong wait.  But it was so nice to talk without being interrupted that we didn't mind the hour and fifteen minute wait.

Huge burgers.  They were delicious.  It was fun to try a new place together.

Sofie and Noah think it's so fun to wear sunglasses around the house.

Puzzle time.  It's the best.  They work hard and it's quiet for a few minutes!

Building a really tall tower with Isak as the assistant.

100 days of school.
Isak and Kira made t-shirts for the 100 days of school.  Kira made hers with 100 beads.  Well, I hot glued the beads on.  But she helped design it and count the beads.

Isak's t shirt was from an idea on Pinterest.   100 eyes on a monster.

Isak helped color the monster and told me where to glue the eyes.  They were fun little projects and I enjoyed working with each of them.

Here's their class.  Kind of hard to see.  But Isak is on the second row from the top and third kid in.  Kira is sitting in front of him.

Kira's latest drawing...I think she does some awesome art!

Nels was so sweet and brought me home this raspberry filled donut.

 We survived Chicago's Polar Vortex weather.  This was from my phone...it doesn't include the wind chill factor.

 I was so happy to see -1!!!  Haha!

 And like I said, my favorite part is to snuggle up with a good book.  I'm reading War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.  I started on January 1st.  It's going to take me a while.  There are 1368 pages.

 And we'll end January with a happy hugging picture.  💕💕

Other stuff about January.

• The babies often say, "Ho! Ho! Ho!  Merry Christmas!"
• I finished the intro to Javascript on Codecademy.  
• We had two sets of friends over on two different Sundays!  Go us.  We even played games!  Wits and Wagers, Blockus and Carcassonne.  Pretty awesome, Right?!
• I gave a talk in church.  Glad it's done!
• I reorganized our clothes in the drawers with the KonMari method.  I really like it.  Kira was so sweet and said, "Thank you Mom!  This is the best.  I can see all of my clothes now!"
• I started a subscription to beachbodyondemand.com  so now I have a ton of different workouts available.  I really like it!
• I tried to teach the kids how to do cart wheels.  It's a work in progress. 
• Tried some new recipes...salmon and a spaghetti squash lasagna.
• We've played some games with the kids.  Memory and Trouble.  Isak and Nels play checkers together.  
• Finished reading "A Boy Named Christmas" to the big kids.  Great book!
• Kids got out of school three days I think for bad weather.
• We had FHE's.  Some were good...and some weren't.  One was an absolute fail!  Everyone was crying and it was terrible.  Why?  We tried to play musical chairs for the game and the babies did not understand it.  Why were we taking the chairs away??!!  Haha.  I tried to laugh it off.  But wow...it was a fail.

All righty and on that happy note we will say good bye to January!!