Dear Family and Friends,

This week seemed to fly by as everyone returned to their normal schedules.  Monday everyone had the day off.  Jeremy spent the day catching up on projects and his to do list and enjoyed a day of nothing scheduled in his life.  Kids helped clean up the Christmas decorations and restore their rooms to some form of normalcy.  I thought they would want to spend the afternoon going miniature golfing as a family but everyone begged to just have one more afternoon of freedom and friends so that is what we did.  I was amazed at the dust bunnies everywhere as we put decorations away but now our house feels strangely empty as everything is packed up.

Kids were excited about going back to school but getting back to normal school sleep times meant a little more emotion and drama in our house this week.  Spencer must have set some New Year's goal as he was the happy, get everything done without being asked one this week.  It was great!

Robyn learned this week how to make an egg sandwich by herself.  She is quite proud of her new skill.  And by herself, I mean 100%.  She toasts her english muffin, cuts her cheese, microwaves her egg etc and then cleans everything up.  She practically beams as she cooks and has made her own breakfast or lunch several times this week.  She has been counting down the days to her birthday and birthday party.  This week we planned out what we wanted to do and she made and delivered her invitations.  She asks every day if it is time to decorate for her party.

Really there is no big news this week.  It has been one of those weeks where everything just hums along and makes you so grateful for normalcy.  Allison had her first basketball games this Saturday.  She has never played basketball before and it has been a big learning curve.  But it is fun to see her so excited and trying to listen to her coach and do what she says.  (We haven't had that experience before with sports and kids :) ).  Jeremy's new lens arrived this week so he was enjoying breaking it out for the game.  Spencer who has taken to wearing his camera at all times following in his footsteps.  At times a little too literally but Jeremy tries to grin and enjoy it.  Spencer had a library class for tweens that he goes to twice a month and learned how to make poi balls.  Throw in piano lessons, guitar lessons, dance classes, volunteer stuff, and catching up on errands and the week is full.  I picked out a frame this week for a sketch of my sister's that I bought and got a bunch of books on hold at the library that I was waiting for.  So really nothing big but at the same time weeks like this make me so grateful for the little things we have.  I did sign up yesterday for my second tri for the year that will be at the end of August.  I am a little nervous about it as it will be a challenge as its Olympic length and its open water.  But it will be good to push myself to try something new.  And as promised last week here are some Christmas photos.

Love, Heather

We are so mean, our kids sit at the top of the stairs while we get Taylor ready, anxious to run down.

Robyn really wanted pink yarn - don't ask me why

Allison and Robyn reading the letter Santa wrote back to answer their questions

Robyn could not stop dancing with happiness that morning

Spencer and his lizard gear.