January

Where does the time go?  I was still working on my New Year's Resolutions, and looked at the calendar, and January had just whizzed right by!
Its always better if you write down your resolutions so you stick to them... so here are a few of mine:

• Do a triathlon this year (BTW, I always thought that word was spelled "triathalon"... just learned something new!)  There is one on June 30th in Bear Lake that I'm looking in to doing...
• Sign up for Boot Camp (✔!- doing this 3 days/week and LOVING it)
• Learn to play the guitar (my friend and YouTube are helping me with this... don't have a lot of time, so I do what I can...trying to start out with a Jewel song)
• Organize all my piano music and start to play one night a week at the nursing home where my grandpa is.
• Sing more (I love to sing, and never really do, not sure why... but I'm starting to learn some songs with friends in a band and I'm excited about it!)
• Read the Bible every night before bed, and say my prayers...
• Read more!
• Look for ways to reach out to others in need... be kind
• Take a vacation for me-- the first time with no kids there!
• Date a lot  (I feel like I should note that I am not by any means over my marriage so this is one of several reasons this is proving to be difficult for me)
• Keep up on my blog  -look, I'm doing it right now!  :)
• Journal (I started another personal, private blog for journal purposes)
• Look in to grad school programs in psych (ick, more school?!)
• Take a FUN trip with my kids!
• Somehow do all these things at the same time as being a fantastic mom!  The most important role...

 In my efforts to try to date more... I bought a couple of Jazz tickets for a sweet deal at my work.  I thought I could find a couple guys to take me to the games.  The first game I went with my friend Joe, and the Jazz beat the Trailblazers in a super close game.  It was so fun!!

Joe likes to play around with photos on his Camera+ app, so here are some pics he sent me from the game:  Go Jazz!!

The next game I found a different date to take me, and this was for the Jazz vs. the Lakers.  As it turns out, its pretty easy to find a guy who wants to take you on a date to a basketball game.  I didn't know who to cheer for so I just cheered for whoever was winning, which as it turns out, was shockingly the Jazz.  Another win for the Jazz!  It was so cool to be there in person to watch.

Now lets get to the good stuff... my SWEET ANGEL GIRLS!!!
Avril:  Avril is growing up like a little weed that soaks up everything around her!  She is such a skinny little cutie pie!  None of her pants ever stay up on her, so her little bum crack shows and she has to pull up her pants all the time!  People often mistake her for a 3 year old though because she is pretty tall for her age.  Her hair is getting so long... her nana gets her ready for school in the morning and likes to put it in cute braids to keep it out of her way.
Avril still has on obsession with monsters.  She talks about the monsters getting her every night.  She always makes you tell her bed time stories.  She never gets tired of hearing the same ones over and over again... like Simon the Squirrel, that mommy made up :)
Avril wants to do everything herself.  You cannot help her with anything.  When you try to undress her for her bath, brush her teeth, put her in the car... anything, she will yell, "No, I want to do it!"  So I've learned don't mess with that.  Let her do it :)  She's becoming quite independent.
Unfortunately for McKel, Avril is a little attention junkie.  She LOVES attention, and HATES sharing it!  I am hoping the constant picking on poor lil McKel is just a phase she will grow out of.  If McKel even walks toward anything Avril is playing with, you know a disaster is about to happen!
McKel:  This little girl is Miss Personality if I've ever seen it.  She has everyone on the floor laughing constantly.  Her little grin can light up any room.  I love when she shakes her little finger and says, "no, no, no, no, no, no" haha.  Sometimes she will get so excited she simply cannot contain herself and starts doing a little jumping dance around the room, with the hugest smile on her face you've ever seen.  She likes to put everything in the toilet.  She even put a pen in the toilet upstairs that clogged it and made it so the plumber almost had to be called.  I've pulled soggy stuffed animals out... diapers... pretty much McKel thinks anything that can fit in there, should go in.  She also LOVES to climb.. the higher the better.  McKel is happiest when on top of a table or counter top dancing around for all to see!  She could not possibly be any more of a delight.
So here are some pics and videos from the month:

I am pretty sure that's eggs and cheese Avril is eating.  She is super picky.  Pretty much the only two foods you can usually count on that she'll eat are eggs with cheese, and macaroni and cheese.

So Avril's big news for this month was her surgery, she had on January 25th.  She had a tonsillectomy, adenoidectomy, and bilateral tubes placed in her ears.  We got to watch the whole thing on the tv as the doctor was performing the surgery.
Avril has always had a very difficult time breathing.  She would snore the loudest I've ever heard, and wake herself up several times during the night.  She has never slept through the night, since she was born... and she would have a constant runny nose and sound congested all the time.  We had her hearing checked and it turned out she could not even hear very well, because of all the fluid behind her ears.  Dr. Wood thought this surgery would be very helpful with all of these problems.
As it turns out, Avril had one of the largest adenoids Dr. Wood had ever seen on a 2 year old!  He said she probably has never even been able to breathe through her nose, her whole life!  He predicted we would see a drastic difference in this little girl after this surgery, and he was right!
When Avril was in the recovery, I just remember her sweet little voice saying, "mommy, my head hurts please."  Sooooo sweet!!  She ate like 6 popsicles while she was there.  She had to stay in the recovery room for several hours because her oxygen levels were pretty low afterward, but she handled everything like a rock super star!  LOOOVE this little angel darling girl.

Avril loves to wash her hands.  She saw the sink and insisted that she wash her hands several times before surgery.

Papa Spencer helping Avril eat a popsicle afterwards

And here is my sweet doll again in recovery, eating her popsicle.  She is still a bit drugged, as you can probably tell.

She mistook her finger for a popsicle?

My favorite thing in the whole world... cuddling with my sweetheart

We had some fun eating corn on the cob.  My kids are so cute eating it I had to snap some shots with my phone...

McKel tries a new method.... vertical corn-on-the-cob eating

Seriously.  Stinking adorable!!

We also took a trip down to Salt Lake to a house warming party for Aunt Trish and her triplet boys.  What a gorgeous new home they have!!  And the cutest little boys ever:

Sorry, I'm not going to try to get their names in order:  George, Parker, and Edison are their names

Some more not too exciting news this month was that I dyed my hair.  The reason it is a not too exciting thing is because this is becoming a more frequent thing for me.  I have fun changing hair color with the seasons.  I had Jared take a pic of me in the car as we headed to Salt Lake, to show my new hair color.

And this is just a funny Avril picture.  She was wearing a band aid on her nose all day for no reason.  Just because she wanted to!  A very Avril thing to do...

Here is a video of FHE one night where we played some monster games. This is the bean bag toss. Avril was hilarious. She heard nana make a disgruntled sound when she missed the hole, so she would imitate that sound after every time she threw the bean bag in.


Avril has a blast pulling her little sister around in the wagon. McKel is just funny. There are no words to describe this little sweetie girl.