January is gone already...

Maven

 Maren.

 Evren. We have started potty training and he is doing very well while also adding new words to his vocabulary such as "wear" for underwear, "potty", "marsh" for the marshmallow treat he gets with success. 

 

 New kitchen toy or maybe we should call it a new place to store all of our stuff. 

They make pretend meals, but mostly try to get every single toy they own into it. 

 So, I finally realized that the girls and I have wavy hair (not straight frizzy hair) and if I learn to care for it correctly the waves will stay in when it is dry. 

 It is amazing what cutting out brushes and shampoos, and using a lot more conditioner will do for their hair! We are still in the trial-and-error phases of the transition to wavy hair. It has given me a new appreciation for anyone with curly hair. It is so high maintenance!

Surprises

This boy is talking so much! He surprised me with this today.

We cut his hair. None of us enjoyed it, but we got it done.

 I was also surprised this morning that the girls had made their beds so precisely. 

They do it the exact way we do it, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was.

Christmas in Ohio

We got to spend a few weeks in Ohio! This was baby Brendan's winter hat. It's too cute.

 The weather wasn't much different than Texas except for a few days when we got to wear our winter coats. It really wasn't the temperature that was cold so much as the wind.

 Aubrey is headed to Wright State this year! I can't believe she is going to graduate soon.

 Doug and Evren were best buddies.

 I wanted to get a picture of how the girl's dressed up their pajamas. 

They showed me how they felt about that.

 This tree came really close to hitting our fence when it fell into the ravine behind our house.

 This is a shot from further back. None of those trees had fallen in last time we went back there. 

Maren's fake smile, Maven's real smile. Very similar.