Wrapping up January

Here are our pictures from the last few days of January.

Thursday, January 29



This is what freezing fog looks like. Apparently, that's what you call fog when the temperatures are below freezing. :) After the ice we had yesterday, we woke up to freezing fog this morning. There wasn't too much visibility on the roads, and it was weird to see this wall of fog constantly in front of me as I drove in to work. I also got my hair cut today. The hairdresser put a few more layers in it than I've had, but I really like it. The picture is without any styling – I just let it air dry after getting it cut.

Friday, January 30


I really want to get our house more in order this year, and organization will be one of the keys things. We bought some cubes for Mara's room to help us organize her toys. Mara is thrilled with it, and it has helped us get some more of her toys out of the living room. The kitties even like to get into it. In fact, we liked this set so much that we went back to Target and got the one I originally wanted (one with eight cubes in it).

Saturday, January 31


Today was another beautiful Saturday, so Mara and I went to the park again. At the school, they have hopscotch markers painted on the concrete. Mara loves to jump from spot to spot while counting out the numbers. She'll even go backward (from 10 to 1).

Ice Day

The ice storm moved through yesterday, so most schools were closed today. That meant that Mara and I got to spend the day at home together. I did work from home some, but only for about half a day.

John decided to go out and scrape some last night, which was a good thing since he still had to scrape some this morning.




When it finally got above freezing, Mara and I went out front and took some pictures. Mara insisted on taking her own camera out to take pictures too.

Another week or so in pictures

I have several days' worth of pictures to catch up on. I couldn't pick just one picture for a few days, so I went ahead and posted multiple pictures. :)

Sunday, January 18


Mara spent the afternoon playing with her cousins Lori and Gracie while John and I went to a movie. She helped them decorate the cupcakes for Myra's birthday celebration later that night. Actually, she put frosting on one cupcake and then decided to help herself to straight frosting.

Monday, January 19


Mara definitely takes after me. Even in the middle of winter, one of the first things she does when we get home is take off her shoes. She loves to be barefoot even if it's really cold.

Tuesday, January 20




We honored my mom's birthday today by having dinner at Olive Garden – one of my mother's favorite places to eat. the kids enjoyed it as well, and Mara got to have two of her favorite foods – cheese and spaghetti.

Wednesday, January 21



Mara and I had to go to Braum's today to get some milk and juice. Mara insisted on picking out the juice and carrying it up to the counter all by herself. I was afraid she was going to drop it, but she made it. She just needed me to help her put it up on the counter.

Thursday, January 22


We decided to pack for our trip to Oklahoma tonight so hopefully we can get an early start in the morning, and all of the cats (plus Mara) insisted on helping us. Since it's just a quick trip, it didn't take us too long to pack. The biggest issue we had was that it's going to be close to 80 tomorrow (down here at least), and then the high is only going to be in the 30s and 40s the rest of the weekend. Gotta love the weather in Texas and Oklahoma.

Friday, January 23




We traveled to Stillwater today and spent some time with John's grandma. Mara wasn't too sure when we first got there, but she really warmed up to her Grandma Gwin by the time we left. Hopefully we'll be able to make it back up there again soon and spend some more time with her. Before we went to see her, though, we stopped at Eskimo Joe's for lunch. Mmmm. Bacon cheese fries.

Saturday, January 24




Mara and Kyann helped get breakfast ready today. Tonight, we lined up all of the kids on the loveseat to get some pictures of them in their PJs. And only in Oklahoma will you see them drilling for oil as you walk out of Toys R Us.

Sunday, January 25



Mara and Kyann had a lot of fun playing together this weekend. This morning, they decided to play dress up. Then, when it was time to leave, they kept giving each other hugs.

Monday, January 26


Mara has really become interested in dressing up recently, and tonight she decided to put on her Ariel costume – complete with crown and Snow White "glass slippers." :)

Tuesday, January 27


Mara contributed today's picture. I picked her up at lunch today since an ice storm was supposed to come through in the afternoon, and on the way home she decided to take some pictures with my camera. This is a picture of the tag on one of her cloths. She always needs at least one cloth (along with her kitty and blanket) to go to sleep, so she takes them all to school with her each day

Timing is everything...

...and apparently we don't have it down. At least not yet.

Another cycle has come and gone and still no pregnancy. I know it will happen one of these days, and I can accept that – most of the time. It's hard, though, when other people around me are having babies or announcing their pregnancies. I just keep reminding myself that it will all happen in God's timing, and for whatever reason, we aren't ready to have another child just yet.

So, basically, this post is to just let you guys know that there's no news on the baby front, but hopefully that will change soon.

Birthdays and anniversaries

I wanted to wish a belated happy birthday to my mother-in-law, Pat, and a happy early birthday to my sister-in-law Myra.

Also, today marks what would have been my mom's 71st birthday as well as the 18-month mark since we lost her. In remembrance, we're going to eat at one of her favorite places tonight – Olive Garden. I bet you can guess what today's picture will be. ;)

Today is also the 12 year anniversary of when John first asked me out on a date. (We actually went out on the date on January 24.) Sometimes it's hard to believe that we've been together for that long. We're going to be in Stillwater this Friday, so we just might have to go to some of the places we went on our first date.

This Week in Pictures

Monday, January 12


Today was Mara's first day in her new class. She seems to be happier now that she's with most of her friends again. It'll be even better once the few friends from her old class move up to the new one as well.


Tuesday, January 13


Mara loves playing her DS and all of the games she got. She probably spends the most time playing the Hamsterz Life game where you take care of a hamster, including feeding it, brushing it, playing with it, and even cleaning out the cage. We've slowly been earning different toys and things for the hamsters. Tonight, we had one of them play with a roller coaster, and Mara loved it. She just kept laughing the entire time the hamster rode the roller coaster.

Wednesday, January 14



No, we don't have mice – Doxy is a bread fiend. Anytime we buy bread at the store, we have to be careful where we place it less she attack it. The other day, I bought some hamburger buns from Wal-Mart and left them in the bag on the floor because we were going to be using them today. Well, when I walked into the kitchen this morning, I discovered that Doxy had attacked both packages of buns during the night. Luckily, only one bun in each package was partially eaten. When we were fixing dinner, I decided to cut off the part where she had already chewed and gave it to her, and she went to town on it.

Thursday, January 15


For Christmas, Mara got a Disney Princess game for the Wii. After making John and I play it several different times, she finally started playing by herself tonight. While it's a fairly easy game (targeted at kids her age and slightly older), it does use both the Wii remote and the nunchuck.

Friday, January 16


One of Mara's favorite meals consists of what she calls "Chinese soup" (egg drop soup) and sesame chicken. There's a really good Chinese food place not too far from where we live, so we went there with my family for dinner.

Before going to dinner, we met everyone at the Plano Dr Pepper StarCenter, and Mara showed Gracie some of her DS games.


Saturday, January 17




John had to work today, so Mara and I decided to go to the park. It was a really nice day. Mara rode her scooter to the park, and then she played on the three different playgrounds there. We both had a lot of fun enjoying the outdoors.

Real vs. Not Real (according to Mara)

I haven't posted just to post this year (and not part of Project 365), and I thought it was about time I did. Don't worry – I have pictures to post too, but I might wait another day or so and post several at once.

It seems like Mara has a pretty good sense of what is real and what is not real. We've never really made a big deal out of what's real and what's not except for when it comes to what she says she's afraid of.

Her current fear right now is the shadows in her room, and we can't tell her that shadows aren't real because, well, they are. :) Instead, we just say that she'll be fine and that we're here to protect her from whatever scares her. When I was putting her to bed the other night, I told her that her big whale would keep her safe while she slept, but she countered that he couldn't because he wasn't real. How can you argue with that?

When we were at the Heard Museum last weekend, she immediately knew that the dinosaurs were robots and not real. However, she still wanted to keep her distance from them most of the time.

Mara's sense of reality also came into play around Christmas. When I picked her up on the last day of school before Christmas, Mara told me that there's only one real Santa Claus. We thought she believed that the Santas at the mall and everywhere else were not real, but we didn't really say one way or another. Her statement right then confirmed it. We figure we might only get one more year of Santa out of that little girl. I'm not too surprised, though, since I figured it out at an early age too. But I still loved the spirit of Santa, which is what we will continue even after Mara doesn't believe.

I also thought I'd throw out another "Maraism" that she said recently. When she was taking a bath the other day, she said that there were "stuck-tion cups" on the bottom of her bathmat that kept the mat stuck to the bath.

More pictures

I haven't posted for a couple of days, so I have a few pictures to catch up on.

Friday, January 9



We went to Spaghetti Warehouse for dinner with Diane and my dad. Mara loved the trolley that was in the middle of the restaurant. She really wanted to sit in it to eat, but they didn't have large enough tables for all of us to fit. As always, she enjoyed the spaghetti we got for her there.

Saturday, January 10


I attended a baby shower for one of my friends that had twin girls last week. They were 10 weeks early but are doing good, which is wonderful news. We all received paperwhite bulbs as a goody from the shower. I guess we'll see in a few weeks if I manage to kill it or not. :)

Sunday, January 11



Mara has been asking to go to a museum for a while and was really hounding us about it this weekend, so we decided to take her to the Heard Museum in McKinney. They had the Dinosaurs Alive exhibit there, and she loved looking at the different dinosaurs that moved.

Days 7 & 8

Wednesday, January 7


After dinner, Mara and I decided to run a few errands, and we ended up at Kohl's – one of Mara's favorite stores. The reason she likes it so much is because they have a different kind of cart that she can ride in. Plus, she can easily get in and out of it all by herself.

Thursday, January 8


I wasn't planning on this being the picture for today, but it's what I got when Mara refused to look at the camera when I was trying to take a picture. However, it is a picture to document since we have noticed that Mara's hair has slowly been darkening and is no longer the light blond it used to be. It has started getting darker much quicker than mine ever did, so I have the feeling it won't stay blond for too much longer.

Movin' up!

Day 6 takes us to Mara and her school. We finally got notice today that she is moving up to the older 3s class. They've had a full class up until now, but they finally have a couple of openings. She should only be in that class for a few months until she moves up to the 4-year-old class around her birthday in March. :)

Days 4 & 5

I really need to come up with better titles for these posts... ;)

But here are the next two days of pictures. So far, I'm 5-for-5. I'm on a roll! :)

Sunday, January 4


We have had several bags of clothes sitting around our house just waiting to be donated, and Mara and I finally took them to Goodwill. As you can see, the seven bags of clothes filled up my trunk. (Ignore the dirty car.)

Monday, January 5


This has been a pretty crazy winter. Each week for the last month or so, we've gone from 80 degree weather one day to highs only in the 30s the next. Today, we had freezing rain. I didn't realize how bad it was getting (I thought it was still just rain) until my boss said we could leave at 4 to hopefully avoid bad traffic. That's when I looked out my window at work and noticed the ice on the trees. This is a picture of the ice on our trees at home.

And just for good measure, I also got some pictures of Mara helping John make dinner. Mmmm. Empanadas. :)