The month of January is all about making (and hopefully keeping) resolutions. Around the Cardon home, we've been diligently working on our resolutions for 2015. Here's a rundown on just a few of them:
VISITING TEACHING
Admittedly, I've never been that great at visiting teaching. It's hard here where our ward boundaries extend pretty much to Kingdom Come (about 1 1/2 hours end to end) and for some reason they don't assign you sisters all in the same city. At one point I had 4 different sisters in 4 different cities. Add in peoples' work schedules, juggling kids, and the evenings when Jon is working, and I don't have a great track record. But guess what? Leah patiently sat through about 3 hours of visiting teaching appointments a couple of mornings ago, so, so far, I have a perfect record for the year (ha, ha). I thought she deserved a break at Chick fil A for some lunch before we headed home. Phew!
ATTEND THE TEMPLE
The Raleigh temple closes in December for maintenance, which is probably just as well since our December was pretty crazy--but we hadn't been to the temple since October. As soon as January 1st rolled around, Jon and I knew we needed to get a temple trip on the calendar ASAP. Although (happily) we only live an hour away from the temple, since we don't have babysitters it takes some serious finaggling to make it work. This time we sent Jon up first on his own last Friday night after work, and he caught the 7 p.m. session. Then, we all drove up together Saturday morning so I could make the noon session, while Jon and the kids got lunch and shopped at Target. Once my session finished, we headed to Costco for groceries, which made for a very long day, but we're both grateful we got to go!
POTTY TRAINING
Leah is super interested in going potty like a big girl, so once I'd bought her some princess big-girl panties, that sealed the deal! So far we've been very casual about it, just wearing panties on mornings we're home for a couple of hours at a time, and she's been pretty hit or miss. She mostly makes it to the potty, and I'm figuring this is about the same age that we potty-trained Lucy successfully. It would sure be nice to be diaper free!
DADDY DATES
I am totally kicking myself for not taking better pictures, but Jon is so cute to take each kid out for a "Daddy Date" all by themselves and this month he completed dates with all three kids! They get so excited when we plan our week during FHE, and Jon sets up their individual "date." Lucy was first, and they went to get Blizzards at Dairy Queen. Zach went next on his "Mans Date" to have donuts and hot chocolate at Dunkin Donuts. Leah was last (but not least) and since she is obsessed with cupcakes, of course daddy took her to pick one out at C Cups Cupcakery in Southern Pines. She was thrilled!
ENJOYING OUR LAST SOUTHERN WINTER
The weather so far this month has been beyond incredible! It's toying with me...Trying to tempt me into staying here where snowy, icy, cold winters are never the norm! All week it was sunny and in the 60's, topping out on Wednesday at 66 degrees, IN JANUARY!! It was fantastic. I took Leah to the park in an effort to make the most of our last "winter" here in the South and the extra vitamin D was the exact boost we needed.
I've come home on several blue-skied mornings to find 14 (FOURTEEN) of the biggest, meanest turkey vultures sitting on our roof, waiting for me to pull into the garage. They don't even flinch when I honk at them, or open the garage door. They usually sit along the power lines behind our house, but for some reason they've adopted our roof as their roost-- most likely to drive me insane with all of the poop they're leaving up there, or to catch Leah unawares when I let her out to play some morning. They'll carry her away if I'm not careful! It's like an Alfred Hitchcock movie. So creepy!
BEDTIME ARRANGEMENTS
Miss Lucy is so much fun to have as a child. She is vivacious, articulate, happy, and has the very wildest of imaginations! In fact, so active is her little brain, that when it's nighttime and time for bed, she has a really hard time turning her imagination off and falling asleep. In her AIG class they studied ancient Egyptian history, particularly mummies, which utterly fascinated Lucy! She even got to read some books with pictures of REAL mummies and what they look like today. Unfortunately this exposure creeped her our for MONTHS, and she's had nightmares about mummies hiding under her bed ever since. It got so bad several weeks ago that we even had to have her start sleeping in our room on the floor. Meanwhile, we moved Leah out of her pack'n'play and into the bed Lucy and Zach were sharing--because Zach was then scared to sleep alone. She became Zachy's new bed buddy, leaving us in a pickle!
As soon as the kids started back to school I knew it was time we handled the "Bedtime Arrangements," dun, dun. dun. I decided to switch the crib in Lucy's room into a toddler bed, we decked it out with Frozen bedding, and Leah was more than happy to claim it--and she sleeps great. Thus on to Lucy! She was much harder to convince that mummies aren't real and don't visit Pinehurst, but we finally worked out that as long as she cuddles up with her Holy Ghost blanket, I come check in every 10 minutes until she's asleep, and we leave the night-light on, all three have successfully been sharing that one little room without too many problems (knock on wood). Phew!
TAKING ADVANTAGE OF DOWN TIME
Moving is HARD. Moving is STRESSFUL. I've heard it said that the three most stressful life events are Death (of a loved one), Divorce, and Moving. And folks, having moved a time or two, I can vouch for how very true that is! Jon has been working harder than ever to help build up the "nest egg" so to speak, to ensure us as easy a transition as possible, and just came off of a 60 hour work week, moonlighting Monday night, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday-- and by Saturday evening we both were totally wiped out. I'm trying really hard to stay positive and ahead of all the things that will be drastically changing in the next four (eek!) months, but the fear and uncertainty is definitely taking its toll! We decided to hire a babysitter and treat ourselves to Date Night yesterday evening.
We thought outside the box and tried a local joint called "Squires Pub" over in Southern Pines. We've probably driven past it a thousand times. It serves British pub food, and it was actually really, really good! We tried the calamari, fish n' chips, and the Revolutionary burger-- which has been voted best burger by several local newspapers 4 years in a row. I have to say, it definitely hit the spot and I'm so glad we took a chance and got to try somewhere new! So, although January has never been one of my favorite months, we're making it through one day at a time, staying busy and enjoying the unexpected sunny days, and the down time before the moving chaos begins. Let's just hope we can stick with our 2015 Resolutions!
