January slog

I have a little bit of the January blahs.  The temperatures are supposed to hover around zero all week, and I am missing the long days of summer, when we could get out for walks and go to the pool every day.  I think Evie might be teething again (canines are due to come in soon), and on top of that, Roscoe has kennel cough and we've been cleaning up nasty dog phlegm from the carpet for the past week.  Fortunately, just as I was reaching my breaking point, Grandma Karen came to babysit, and Matt and I had a much-needed date night!  Grandmas rock!!

Roscoe is sorry for his gross kennel cough!

Maybe it's good that it is too cold to go walking right now.  Look what we saw as we were leaving the neighborhood to go grocery shopping:

I guess they call it "Fox Run Road" for a reason!

We went out to dinner as a family over the weekend, and we were so proud of Evie's restaurant behavior.  She ate like a champ and was completely entertained with all the activity at the restaurant.  It was actually relaxing for us, which is not always the case when we go out to eat with her in tow!

A play date with friends on Friday helped keep us sane, and clearly tired out Miss Evelyn!  She was asleep within minutes of driving home.

We have been slowly introducing various Christmas gifts into the mix of toys, and we just tried painting with water for the first time.  It was fun, but still required a little bit of help from Mom and Dad!  Evelyn loves her arts and crafts, so I'm sure we'll be doing more of this again soon.

And, of course potty training and eating are practically a full-time job these days...

What fun would potty training be without a good magazine?

Homemade yogurt pop to help with teething - yummy!

Last but not least, the most exciting thing going on is that we are embarking on a project to finish two rooms in our basement: a playroom and an office.  The first step was to move all of our stuff out of the way, and the framing will begin this week.  It's exciting and nerve-wracking, but we will really appreciate having some more space for the rapidly accumulating toys when it's done!

Basement almost empty - play room will be on the left, office on the right