The Johnson Clan

Today was our Stake’s Relief Society Conference. The main speaker was a grief counselor at a hospital who talked about coping with grief. We then took various random classes. I chose to go to cake decorating, gardening, and “finding joy”. They were all good, fun classes. We used a birthday gift card to Olive Garden tonight. Cora discovered the garlic bread.

Today Rachel and her kids came over. We made chocolate covered Oreos with fancy Valentine’s Day toppings. I gave them to Clayton, who took them to work and shared them with his co workers.  Tonight we are making fondu for the first time. Fingers crossed that it works out. Ruby and Cora have this adorable new game they play when we’re hanging out in their room. They’ll chase each other around the rocking chair and stop to look backwards and laugh at the other one. Could they be any more adorable as a duo? Cora is standing on her own these days. Clayton have I have a bet going. He says that they’ll be walking by their birthday, but I think it’ll take them a little longer. Cora might just do it though.  It’s almost running season, and I am feeling the itch! All my favorite hobbies are seasonal, unfortunately. Camping, hiking, running, swimming, etc. I have been playing the piano and my violin a lot more recently, hoping that it will one day encourage Ruby and Cora to also want to...

Our friends the Helbigs were sealed in the temple this weekend, which gave us the perfect excuse to visit Dayton. Clayton went to the sealing on Saturday while the girls and I hung out with Nana and Abba.  I’m always really disappointed in the quality of the pictures that my phone takes. Aren’t iPhone supposed to have good cameras in them? Mine stinks. Oh well. Anyway, we had a great time. We watched the scariest movie ever called Split. It’s about a guy with split personality disorder. Absolutely creepy. We also watched a movie called Gifted, about a guy who gets custody of his niece. It was cute. The weather driving home was awful. It tacked an extra hour into our drive. Luckily Ruby and Cora fell asleep the minute we started driving away from the house, and they went straight to bed as soon as got home. Those girls were tired. 

It’s a bit chilly out today. With the wind chill the news reported that it would reach -22 degrees. Also, fun fact, in that kind of weather you can get frost bite in 10 minutes. So we didn’t go anywhere today, and it made for a very long day.  By the time Clayton came home I was ready to hand off the girls and go sit in a quiet room by myself. 

We are in the middle of a huge winter snow storm. This is the most snow we’ve gotten since moving to Ohio almost 4 years ago. Our stake even canceled church, which hasn’t happened to us since the crazy winter snow storm in Buffalo, NY.  We spent the whole weekend stuck in our house. Everything is closed, the streets are a mess, and it would take a looong time to shovel our cars out. Needless to say we were feeling a little cooped up. So we bundled the girls up in their snow suits and headed outside for their first snow experience.  They hated it. They hated getting tucked into their snow suits (mostly because they’re just barely too small now), they hated snow flying in their faces, they hated being put down in the snow, etc. Poor girls. Finally their mean parents brought them back inside, warmed them up, and made some cookies. Not that they got to eat them ;)

My New Years resolution this year was to create a play group. So far it’s going great. I pick a place and time each week, text all my friends, and then we all show up and hang out. The last play group was at the Stow library. Ruby and Cora loved pulling books off the shelves, something they don’t get to do at home because our bookshelves have cabinet doors on them. Winter has finally set in. It’s snowy and cold, but this year it’s been so mild and has even had sunny days! I can deal with a cold but sunny winter.  I’m reading the Nightingale by Kristin Hannah, so far so good. I am currently watching all the old X Men movies. I never saw all of them, and I really like them. I also just watched a documentary called In Defence of Food. Loved it, recommend it. I really enjoy health science. Clayton and I joined our local gym. We used to be members, but once the girls were born we stopped going. Now we’re going again. Swimming laps helpswith  the winter blues.  Clayton is study...