I plan on writing more than I have this past month. Once I got my blog started I somehow locked myself out and it took awhile to figure it out. I went and visited my sister DeAnna and her husband John helped me get things figured out so I should be good to go now! Woohoo! There is a post that I wrote that I can’t seem to find but forward from here.
So January is always a bit of a let down for me to be honest. It is hard to follow the fun and excitement and Spirit of Christmas. New Years is exciting and I always feel a bit refreshed and ready to head into the year…but then it is just cold and gloomy and back to the same old routines- and stays that way for far to many weeks.
With my kids getting a little older and their schedules getting busier that does help the month go by faster.
Emilee is 5 and when you ask her if she wants to learn to do or play anything she always says, “Yes! But not until I’m older.” So we told her she was older now and she can try basketball. Her and one of her besties, Reece, are trying YMCA Bitty Basketball together. 
She seems to really like it. Ryan is hoping she will like it and they can share the love of basketball together for years to come. She has the height-she is estimated to be 5′ 9″, and she seems to have a bit of natural coordination which Ryan hopes will translate to athleticism. It is hard to say, a good 25% of practice is still spent practicing her cartwheels, but that is way better that the 75% of soccer practice she spent doing somersaults last Fall. Emilee is giving her first talk in Primary this Sunday too. She is excited about it but has a little shy side to her so hopefully she will actually say it when the time comes.
Allison is our social butterfly. She keeps us up to date on all the happenings in the 2nd grade and 5th grade (they sit across from each other at lunch, much to her delight). She has been playing the piano for about a year and a half now. Before Christmas she was struggling and not really loving it and begging to quit. Over the break her teacher gave her and Matthew a duet to learn. It was the first “real” song she ever learned and it was a break through for her. She realized she can pick out songs she likes and learn them and it is fun, and she is good at it. She practices on her own or with little reminding now. I hope it lasts! She is still doing gymnastics too. She started with a general gymnastics class, they rotate through the floor, bars, beam and a few other things. She was not feeling challenged enough with that and getting bored. She seems to have a knack for gymnastics too. I talked to her coach and he suggested she take another class that does floor work only. She loves it! She is getting close to being able to do a back hand spring on her own. She achieved the flexibility to do the splits completely this month too which she is quite proud of. She joined Girl Scouts this year too. This month she and her dad made a pine wood derby car to compete with.
She did a good job and almost placed in the top three for speed but not quite. Alli has an artistic side and she had fun painting and blinging out her car with glitter. January is cookie season for Girl Scouts. Selling door to door is one of the last things I want to do but Alli (being the polar opposites we are) is all for it. She dragged Ryan out with her a few times (I was always busy…) and 85 boxes later she was not even close to done but Ryan was. They have cookie booths that the whole troop will sell cookies at too so she can look forward to selling more that way.
Matthew has not shortage of activities to keep him busy either. I told him he had to play the piano for one school year minimum. He also decided that he wanted to join Orchestra and play the violin too. He is currently looking 
forward to dropping the piano as soon as I will let him, but plans on continuing with the violin. He is in a year round baseball academy. Ryan and him share a LOVE for baseball. When Fall Ball was over the coaches told everyone to rest their arms and not even play catch until after Christmas. In the mean time the academy has a strength and agility class called Boost they want him doing as much as possible. He has been doing that a few times a week and working on his hitting. I’m excited to see him hit this coming season. He has improved a lot. I love that he is working out on a regular basis too, hopefully that will instill a habit in him to continue in the future. While he was waiting for regular practices with his team to start again-which they did this month- he played basketball with an Olathe Rec team. Matthew is naturally athletic so any sport he tries at he will be at least decent. He has not been practicing basketball very much though so he has lost a lot of his dribbling skills…and shooting skills…but he has been enjoying it, even though he says he just tolerates it until he can play baseball again. His baseball team has several kids that play indoor soccer together too so he is trying that out. It isn’t very time consuming, not even a practice and game every week, but it is one more thing to keep him distracted from video games and stupid You Tube.
Well, I will pause for now. I still have lots to say! My next post will be about the awesome trip to see my sister in Utah that I just got back from.