January, how I love thee

January is always a slow month for us.  And that's a good thing since it gets dark so early.  I'm ready to go to bed by 7:00 pm...I kid...really about 5:30 pm.  I usually push forward, but typically January finds the Shackelfords all tucked in by 8:45 pm.  I'm not even kidding.

We use January to get ready for the year.  So, several things are in the planning stages: a children's Valentine's party, Kids Beach Club, children's camp, women's Bible study, VBS, an Easter egg hunt, spring sport league sign ups, etc.  Not much is on the schedule, but much is being planned.  I am so excited about the Valentine's party we have coming up.  We are having the children at our church while their parents leave on #EPICEBCDATENIGHT.  It's going to be awesome or should I say epic.  
We are in full swing with basketball season and with three boys at three different locations Saturday mornings do not disappoint.  I had training Saturday for a program we started this week through church so Mimi and Tee came in for kid duty.  I think they were excited and exhausted.  After all the games we took my dad to Slider Inn for his birthday and then had cake afterwards.  We have no pictures of this event.  Boo...everyone involved was too busy.  Happy Birthday to my dad!  Sonic celebrated his birthday all over the country with 50 cent corn dogs.  I told him he was a lucky guy to have 50 cent corn dogs all day on his birthday...lucky indeed.

Friday night before all the basketball festivities Mimi and Tee took the boys to the mall for dinner and trampoline jumping.  They had dinner, but unfortunately the person running the trampoline station never showed up.  Bummer.  My mother offered to take the boys for us so we could go on a date night.  Before she had the words out of her mouth we were out the door.  Ha!

Friday morning I run with a friend.  If you know me well you know that I am not flexible at all.  (Figuratively and literally speaking...but more literally.)  I talked my friend in to going to a yoga class with me at the gym.  It was comical to say the least.  The girl leading the class literally started speaking another language "to heighten our yoga experience".  What?!?  I'm not even kidding.  At one point I was trying so hard not to laugh I'm pretty sure I snorted.  If you've ever been to yoga, you know it's not the snorting kind of environment.  Anyway...
While Fred and I were on our date I sent my friend the picture below.  I told her after my one class Fred and I were planning on ending our date like this...

Actually, I kid.  After an hour long class I still can not touch my toes.  Seriously.

Friday before my parents got here I took the boys to get hair cuts.  Clayton mentioned to me that he'd like to get his hair cut short.  If you don't know he's been wearing it longer.  I choose not to say anything about his hair.  I try not to major on minor things.  Having said that...when he mentioned that he might cut it short I was all.over.it.  Doesn't he look sweet?!?

Speaking of Clayton...he has two projects at school right now: a science fair project and a book report.  There ought to be a law against being able to assign two project at a time to a sixth grader.  There also ought to be a law against science fair projects, but I digress.  He has had one project all year and here we are with two in one month.  What in the world?  

My mother in law was out of town with Fred's brother.  Before she came back she asked me if I would clean her house since my father in law had been there alone for 10 days.  Sure.  I actually love this kind of thing.  I took Dash with me so he could play with Honey.  Dash loves Honey.  However, Dash does not like the car that much.  This is how he rode most of the way.  

 When we got to her house Dash was not very nice.  He took poor Honey's bone and would not give it back.  I think it was a real test of the friendship.  Silly dogs.

Sweet Jack has made some friends in the neighborhood (Yeah!).  It is so sweet to see them all playing outside together after school and on the weekends.  Jack loves being outside and he loves a buddy.  So win, win for him.  

Fred and I have had the same mattress since we got married.  It's been a good mattress.  Really good. But it's almost 15 years old and it's starting to show a little wear.  We need to buy a new one, but unlike when we got married, Fred and I now have different opinions about what kind of mattress we need.  I made an appointment with him on Friday to go look at mattresses.  When he saw it on our calendar (Yes, our calendars are synced.  Yes, we are nerds.) he laughed.  Why did he laugh?  If this mattress works out like the first one we will have it for 15 years.  By the time we get rid of this next mattress Clayton will be 26, Jack will be 23 and Andrew will be 19.  (I'd prefer not to think about how old I'll be!) It will definitely be a different day.  Let's not talk about it right now.