Anyway, here are our highlights since mid-December:
**We made two - count'em, two - trips to the seasonal American Girl store that popped up in Salt Lake City. My friend Angie and I took our girls down in mid-December and our family made a return trip the first weekend in January. The store was only temporary and didn't have the best selection but Tessa was able to pick up a few things:
In December Tessa bought a few accessories, but she went all out in January - she bought a new doll. The doll in the above pictures is Star, her first AG doll. She also has the last three Girls of the Year - 2014's Isabelle, 2015's Grace and now 2016's Lea. She has bought the last two with her own money so it's hard to say no when she has saved enough and wants to spend her money on the doll. So far no buyer's remorse.
**We had a nice, quiet Christmas here in Hyde Park. The kids are old enough that they don't get a lot of little gifts so there aren't a ton of things to open on Christmas morning but they each got a new blanket and something that they wanted (Henry - golf pass, William - Jazz tickets, Tessa - diner play set for her dolls). We hung out at home and went to see the new Star Wars movie. It was a fun day:
**In mid January we got new carpet! I didn't take any pictures of the change because we got a really similar color and style to our old carpet. Our old carpet was just old and yucky and stained and this new carpet is beautiful. I love it. It was quite the hassle getting ready for the installation, though. We had to basically unload the entire house! It took almost a week to get everything boxed and packed up to move into the basement and the carpet installers moved all the bigger furniture for us. It only took 6 hours to rip up the old carpet, install the new, and move all our stuff back into the room. Moving everything was a good excuse to get rid of stuff and we made a few trips to the DI. But what a difference.
So we are just moving along. Lots of random days off for the kids over the next month or so but spring is in sight!
