January: A Season for Change!

This is Jen's (Doug's sister) beautiful house in Arizona. It may not look like a mansion on the outside , but it is.  I loved doing a stroller-ride in her neighborhood!

Cason got cute orange attire from Peanut, so I texted her a picture of his cuteness.

More cuteness

I am struggling with moving pictures around tongiht, but this is me with Peanut and Meredith, a friend from our old ward in McLean, Virginia. We ran into her at the Children's Museum at Thanksgiving Pointe, but she actually met Brooklyn before she saw me because Brooklyn had lost me and was crying hysterically. Meredith was trying to help her find her mom. A few minutes later, I saw Brooklyn, and then Meredith saw me. It was so nice to see her.

When we can home from Utah, I showed Doug my awesome BYU lawn chair I got from Peanut for my birthday. He modeled in it for me and the kids acted properly horrified that he was snitching it.

Speaking of birthdays, I decided to go blonde for my birthday! I've wanted to do it for a long time, and I finally decided this was the perfect time. I could chase away the cold gloom with radiant hair. . . except the hairdo was a disaster. I knew there were problems when the most flattering picture of me with my new blond hair was this weirdo face. I didn't even want to send pictures to my family.

Here's another ugly picture after my 4-hour nightmare in my friend Jessica's salon.

But Jessica texted me and asked if I'd like her to come over and do some touch-up at my house. I said yes please, and asked if she would cut my hair as well. She did, and things started looking better. So this is five hours into getting my hair turned blonde.

A selfie

And Lucy taking pictures. My friend Heather Martin asked if gentlemen prefer blondes, and I had to say no. It has been fun to have a change, but Doug definitely prefers me with brown hair. A man at church also told me I look great blonde, but gorgeous as a brunette. He told Doug the same thing, and Doug was all, "What's he doing looking at you?" Nice.

Happy kids on my birthday.

Lucy's beautiful birthday card for me--and the first pictoral evidence I would share with my family that I was blonde.

I love Brooklyn's scowl here.

And this is what she did I asked her to smile.

And then we changed the world again by cutting Cason's hair. Doug did it, but I approved it. It was so sad. 80% of his cuteness went away, and I was in mourning.

This is pretty typical at night time. I love it.

This is also typical. I smile at Cason, put the phone by him, and he smiles for me.

This is Lucy rocking to music as part of Doug's birthday party. You can see that Doug is shutting the blinds so "the neighbors" can't see the party. Very Doug.

Cute Lucy

Scout Isaac (I actually kind of like scouts, much to my surprise)

Lucy read Green Eggs and Ham pretty easily, so we took a picture. She still struggles with reading.

Isaac doing his workbook

Lucy going through all of her flash cards and getting everything correct!

Cason destroying the cards:)