And so we welcome another new year.

This year started off with a long drive back to Tennessee from Nebraska. We had our own family Christmas on the 2nd.

Santa (and mommy and daddy) spoiled Little Man big time. We definitely need to reign it in next year.

This year’s matching jammies were penguins and it was even more difficult getting a good photo with Indie.

Despite how nice they were, I really struggled through the holidays. My heart is still pretty broken and Audie’s absence was/is still keenly felt, especially this time of year.

I don’t know how it’s been a whole year since I said goodbye. Heck, I have tears rolling down my cheeks just typing this. That little nugget was truly my soul pup and he is still so loved.

But…we are still determined to make this new year a good one.

We celebrated the Mister’s 40th birthday on the 7th.

The boys did their Home Depot workshop and we had lunch at Applebee’s. The Mister got pretty spoiled himself at Christmas, so his birthday was toned down. We didn’t even get a cake this year (but he had the lava crunch cake at Applebee’s, so he didn’t go without).

We had a long weekend for MLK day, but didn’t take advantage of the extra days off. I think all the sickness and travel and holidays over the last few weeks finally caught up with us at that point and we needed the rest.

The third weekend of the month saw us late to the Lowes workshop, so Little Man had to build his snowman frame at home. He didn’t mind. He was more than happy to bring it home since it helped him avoid nap time.

We rounded out the end of the month with a Chinese New Year event at Centennial Park in Nashville. It was hosted by the Chinese Arts Alliance. It was so busy and hard to get many photos.

We lucked out with the weather and wrapped up the evening with a visit to the Nashville Zoo for their Zoolumination Festival of Lights.

I’ve been wanting to see this exhibit for a few years now, but with COVID and Little Man and the weather being bitterly cold when we could attend, it hadn’t happened. I decided to just bite the bullet and hope the weather stayed nice to see it. Thankfully, everything worked out this year and the crowd wasn’t too bad. Boy was it worth the wait!

The details were amazingly intricate for such a traditional medium: silk on frames.

I’m so glad we were able to go and the boys enjoyed it too.

We ended the month with post being closed and the roads being too icy for travel after some freezing rain/snow came through.

We’re continuing January’s laid-back atmosphere into February. I don’t have much planned other than Little Man’s Lowe’s and Home Depot workshops. I haven’t decided if we’ll do Valentines photos or not this year — I’m having trouble finding a good outfit.

Either way, it’ll be a short month, and before we know it, spring will come roaring in. As always, I’ll keep updating as we go.

Until then,

Cheers!

–A. xoxo