Other January activities

Since I've been such a slacker this month on the blog, I thought I'd better throw in a quick post of what we've done this month. We've been lucky enough to have my sis-in-law, Savannah, and my nephew, Jared, visiting for almost 3 weeks now. They came to help out with things at my parents house, helping my mom while she recovers, and making sure they eat and such. It's been nice having them here. They actually got here on the day that our congresswoman, Gabby Giffords was shot by the crazy guy that went on a shooting rampage up on the Northwest side. (Gabby's race was a really tight this last time, with her winning by just a few thousand votes. While I disagree with her politically and voted for the other guy, I'm glad she survived. That was quite a shocker of news and is still in the news here, 3 weeks later, mostly just updates about how she is doing, or updates about the legal steps with the shooter.)
Anyway, Rachel has been having fun playing with Jared while they're here. Todd came out about a week and a half ago, too, and has been working remotely. They'll be here until a week from Saturday, so we're enjoying their time visiting. (Though admittidly, some of the enjoyment comes from staying home and taking care of the total lack of housekeeping since my mom's accident.)
Last week was a crazy week for me, with 2 New Beginnings to go to and YW volleyball, along with a regional Priest-Laurel Conference that our stake was in charge of, and ward conferences. So out of 8 days, from Sunday to Sunday, I wasn't at a church building just 2 out of the 8 days. Hopefully things will slow down a little now, but camp planning is starting up, so I'm not counting on it too much.
In one of my guilty moments for abandoning Rachel so often last week, I picked up a gingerbread house kit on clearance for $2. She'd been wanting to make one, but we never got around to it before Christmas, so this was a perfect opportunity. Grandma helped her decorate it and she loved it-especially the eating of the (stale) candy.

Lately Rachel has been on a cleaning kick. She'll get a washrag wet, then come tell me to move my stuff that is on the table, and she'll wash it down, then go to the bathroom and wash her sink and counter.

In the hopes of corralling this cleaning energy and keeping it going, we pulled out a chore chart that I found at Target for $1 a while back and put those jobs she enjoys doing on there, along with teeth brushing in the morning and night, and the one job she HATES: putting her toys away. She's been loving getting star stickers, so we'll milk that for all it's worth and hopefully it'll last a while. She actually has a completely clean room right now, having put all her toys away last night so she could get another sticker. Woohoo!

Coming soon (or whenever I get around to it): pictures from our visit to the Children's Museum with Jared and Savannah.