Life in January 2015

January 2015 brought on big house project.  It started off with just the nursery and moved down the hallway and eventually down the stairs.  We ended up refinishing the wood, tearing off the wallpaper, painting the room (trim, wall, and ceiling) and are putting the finishing touches on the space now.  

Here is the before-except we had taken off the top layer of wallpaper.  

We also finally got a snowfall-our first big snowstorm of the season.  Somewhere around 8"-12" fell starting in the afternoon and tapered off overnight.  

Elsie is obsessed with making snow angels.  She will even try to make snow angels where there is now snow.  

This girl loves to get her own breakfast in the morning and pour her own cereal.  She is getting so big and so grown up!  

In the mornings on our days home Elsie loves to play with Tally-however she gets pretty upset when Tally tears apart her stuff :)  

Wee took some time to get out the itty bitty baby stuff this month to see what we needed.  Everytime Elsie would pull something out she would say "ahhh" 

Elsie could do crafts ALL DAY LONG!  Or what she calls "projects".  I think she made about 15 Valentine's day cards in preparation for the holiday.  

John and I took a work trip to Puerto Rico for four days.  It was a good time to get away before the craziness of a baby comes along.  We had a good mix of work time and relaxation time and the weather was just perfect!!  Elsie got to spend a few nights at Grandma Bev's and Grandpa Dales and just loved it! 

When we returned from our trip we got back to work in the upstairs.  John tore the carpet out and Elsie was very intent on helping us with whatever she could.  

Elsie wanted to help paint so I found an old shirt of mine, tied it up so it would fit her and let her have a small roller :)  She loved being a part of it all.  

Before we left for our trip we encoutered some plumbing problems with our shower so when we got home, John tore apart the surround.  Something we had planned to do anyways.  Yuk!!!  This is our next project for sure! 

This little girl just loves to pose for pictures :).  Oh and she LOVES to wear dresses.  It is rare if you can get her out of the house in anything other than a dress and leggings.  

Towards the end of January we finally had a nice day!  We decided to head over to the park to burn off some energy.  She was in heaven.  And she is getting the hang of pumping her legs while swinging too!  Back and Forth, Back and Forth

We started walking back home and look who came to meet up with us?  Daddy!  She was so excited.  Also, she is definitely outgrowing her balance bike.  :( Guess it is time to move up to the next size.  

I have to include a picture of Tally-I think Elsie wore her out!  

In January, Elsie started new activities on her own-gone are the days of parent/child classes.  It is so much fun to watch her socialize with the other kids and do things with out me by her side.  She started a dance class and will be in a recital in April, Tumbling class, and swim lessons.  

The end of the month brought some challenges for us.  Elsie got sick with pink eye one week, then dealt with some virus which caused her to spike a high fever, developed an ear infection, woke up in the middle of the night with her first bout of stomach flu, and dealt with a cold.  We would up one night in the emergency room to get her tested for Influenza.  With me being pregnant and how scary the flu is this year we didn't want to take any chances.  Thank goodness it was negative.  I did end up getting sick with a fever, aches, exhaustion, and the most worst sore throat I think I ever have had which brought me to the dr to make sure I didn't have strep-that was negative thank goodness.  But by the end of the month we were all on the mend.  

Overall, January was pretty low key for us.  We didn't really travel at all during the month, well besides our trip to Puerto Rico and we spent a lot of time at home working on the upstairs.