Susie's Leaning Tower of Chocolate for 2019 January

Earlier in 2018 (March, haha) I made 18 goals to accomplish, and I actually met all but one. Most of them were really fun, because I like fun and wanted to have more of it.

1. Finish Aurora dress
2. Try 30 new recipes
3. Play all board games, do all puzzles
4. Take a family name to the temple
5. 2 Disney dates with John (several!)
6. Overnight trip without kids SF 8/17, Orlando 11/26
7. 30 day spending freeze
8. Week without social media
9. Special date with each kid
1. Maggie - yorgurtland
2. Dalton - Target
3. Sienna - McDonald’s
4. Arthur - Disneyland
10. Play every hymn 11/6
11. Read Harry Potter -> Book of Mormon (Harry Potter bored me, so I gave up, but then I decided to speed read the Book of Mormon.)
12. Declutter 2018 things
13. Plan a girls night - 5/18 trip to San Diego
14. Disney girls night 10/1
15. Plan a game night (This is the only one I didn't accomplish)
16. 100 blog posts on journal blog 12/1
17. Try something new (like the rock climbing) kayaking, line dancing, zip line
18. Read all conference talks by October.

I have a vague list of 19 things I can hopefully accomplish this year. More fun, coming right up!

We started the new year off right with an early morning trip to the hot tub, where we blind taste tested chewy sweetart flavors. We had lunch at CPK, did new lego sets from Christmas, worked out, and sat around. It was great.

Twice the past week, all six of us slept in the same room, and it wasn’t traumatic. We stayed in Las Vegas on our way home from Utah so Dalton and I could go to The Beatles Love cirque du soleil show. And then we stayed at Great Wolf Lodge. Everyone slept, Arthur went to bed pretty easily. A page has been turned.

Maggie has been reading The Hunger Games and got the movies for Christmas, so we watched the first three over winter break. Sienna loved them and was begging for more "Peeta Show" all the time. I can never tell with that girl; she refused to watch The Addams Family with us because of the disembodied hand on the cover.

I really love January in southern California, where I can wear sweaters and flipflops and laugh at all the miserable people in colder climates.

Sienna: that’s a chihuahua!
Man walking dog: she’s so smart!
Sienna: I know all the kinds of dogs. Chihuahua, puppies, regular dogs, Dalmatians. That’s all the kinds of dogs.

Dalton and I ate breakfast together - his second breakfast (third if you count the piece of cake). We passed a paper back and forth drawing each other pictures and emojis. It was fun.

Sienna:
Mom, are you from the 90s or the olden days?

And: Did they have deal or no deal in the olden days? When you were a kid?

I took the kids with some friends to Glow Zone over the recent four day weekend. It was $85. I remarked to John how nice it is to be people who can spend that kind of money on an outing for the kids for a special day. Then, I saw a woman at Disneyland with four kids, each eating a churro and I thought “I hope I’m never the person to drop $20 on a snack like that.” So maybe I have not yet “arrived.”

Arthur whispering “never smile at a crocodile” in my ear at 5:45 in the morning is almost cute.

Me: Let’s wash your hands.
Arthur: Ok. Do I have worms on me?
Apparently he meant “germs.”