five favorites (01/14)

I meant to write this on Friday, but as life goes, I’m finally sharing on a Monday! It’s one of those rare days where we’ve finished school, dinner is already prepared, and the older girls are playing quietly while the little girls nap, so I feel like I can take a few minutes to hop on here and blog!

ONE. A new year means new classes for the girls at church! They are always so excited to move up to the next age group. I didn’t necessarily plan to take “first day” pictures of them, but they remembered that we did this last year and were willing to do it again. Kaya is looking like such a young lady these days.I’m a little sad that Kaelyn isn’t our little Sunbeam anymore (there’s just something extra sweet about that first year in Primary), but she has the same teachers for CTR 4 and loves going to class just as much as ever.Evie still just hangs out with us, and I am more than okay with that. Look at these two cuties!Nella most likely wouldn’t have posed with the chalkboard, but she did put this Santa hat on and smile for me. She moved up to “senior nursery” and I just can’t believe she’s so big.

TWO. Perler beads have taken over our house. I’m pretty sure that whoever lives in this house will forever be finding these little plastic beads. See that tub? There’s 22,000 of them in there!Really, though, Kaya and Kaelyn absolutely love these (admittedly, I do too… so many childhood memories)! They have spent hours and hours this past week creating anything they can imagine.Hello Kitty!(Yes, Kaya was wearing lipstick this day!)Skye from Paw Patrol!I’m starting to get better at ironing these a little more evenly (parchment paper seems to work best)!

THREE. Lelia and I went running on Christmas Eve, and we ended up going nearly 8 miles instead of the 6 we had originally planned. We had such a good time that we somewhat spontaneously decided to start training for a half marathon together. This is something we’ve talked about doing for awhile, and I’m beyond excited that it’s actually happening! My paces have been seemed more consistent, and dare I say, a little faster, than the last time I did this, so I’m really excited to see what I can do on race day!I had a 9-miler and a 10-miler this past week! Woohoo!FOUR. We started back to school last Monday. It was refreshing to have just over a month off for the holidays (and our Spain trip), but it feels good to be back at it and checking things off. I’m proud of my little first grader and how much she’s accomplished already this school year. It sounds crazy, but summer doesn’t seem that far away!It’s also so nice when your friends are homeschooling too! Our girls love being together, and I’m grateful that homeschool has allowed them to still have playdates in the middle of the day. (Photo credit to Bianca!)FIVE. I might be a little obsessed with the movie Moana right now (seriously, how cute is Pua the pig?), but I’m super obsessed with this smiley baby. It doesn’t get any sweeter than this!Happy Monday!