I am sitting here in a quiet house – a very rare thing for me! The kids are at church with Nini and Papa and Mike’s at a meeting. I have about 40 things to do around the house but I wanted to put down a few of my favorite things about today:

* waking up and snuggling up to the most wonderful man in the world – it was cold this morning (see below)

* heat – our gas ran out late last night (we have new gas water heaters and the company had underestimated how much we would use) so we were cold until about lunch time – heat is a good thing in January

* reading Emma’s research paper about Hermit Crabs – it is soo cute – she is a great little writer

* watching Drew eat ice cream – nothing is cuter than a 3 year old with ice cream all over his mouth

* watching Luke be a man – after Drew knocked down his train track – Luke said “that’s no way to respect a man” he is the funniest kid – I have no idea where he came up with that

* going to Cones and Coffee with my kids – it’s the closest thing to Starbucks we have here – good latte and great kids

* a long chat on the phone with one of my favorite people in the world – Stephanie

* a few minutes alone in the car – sometimes that is where I do my best connecting with God