This is soooo late, but I’m finally getting it up before February is over! Here are the pretty, happy, funny, smart and/or interesting things I smiled at in January 2025.

On New Year’s Day I got to play Settlers of Catan Cities and Knights version with my firstborn and his wife. After seeing my offspring play this game for years, and playing it myself with them halfheartedly, occasionally, I’m finally feeling the charm of the game. They brought their own copy of the game from their home in Texas, including the upgrades that my son printed with his 3-D printer. See the bright blue hexagons below with the white squiggly line? That’s supposed to be water with ocean froth. He printed those plus the tan frames for the hexagonal pieces, as well as the little sheep with the number 2 by it. It’s like we are back when he was 6 and he drew something that made me beam, which I’m bragging about :-). My daughter-in-law won the game. It was so fun to see her interact with my son as they talked back and forth making deals to stay out of each other’s way as they built their cities and strategized.

I felt so blessed to play this game with them, as at first it looked like I wouldn’t be able to play ANY games with them. We were planning on having a big family New Year’s vacation at my parents’ cabin in the mountains. They were already there and we were driving up to meet them. Staying at this cabin in the winter involves meeting my dad with his ATV in a parking lot so he can drive us up the mountainside with his snow tracks. For this particular trip, my sister and nephew were doing the pickup duty. On their way to meet us, the ATV broke down. There was no other way to get there, on the deep snow, so we had to turn around and go home. I was feeling so sad that I wouldn’t see my son and his wife. I knew they had a flight to catch the next day to go back to their home. How happy I was the next morning when I woke up to a text from dear son asking if they could come by and see us at our home. My son said they were able to delay their flight a day. So, they came over and we played the game and had a wonderful time. On top of that they announced that their Christmas gift to me was tickets to see Little Women at the Hale Center Theater in March. I’m so excited! They remembered how much I love the book/movies (see here) and decided to gift me tickets! How thoughtful!

Two of my sons got to go target practice shooting with their aunt, uncle, and cousin on New Year’s Day, while I was playing Catan with their brother and sister-in-law. This was to make up for the aborted trip last Christmas Day that got canceled due to illness and rain.

We watched Wicked as a family on New Year’s Day, in our “home theater” (family room) after hearing so much hype about it. I enjoyed it, although the skeptical part of me keeps wondering if there’s some hidden agenda behind it. Is it really promoting good? Why does something that promotes good have to be named the opposite of good? Is it all a bunch of psychological trickery? It reminds me of Disney’s board game Villainous, which I enjoy playing, but why is it set up for the players to be playing the villains instead of the heroes, with the winner being the villain who is first to accomplish his or her goals?

I went thrifting on the day after New Year’s with my teen daughter and found the treasures above. I was thrilled that she actually asked me to take her thrifting, as those moments are rare, and I am always looking for an excuse to thrift. Those black ankle boots in the upper right are brand new, Franco Sarto boots, that looked never worn, totally brand new! $16 instead of over $100, baby! Maybe because they are not the current trendy version of their boots. That doesn’t matter to me. I don’t care about having the latest fashion. I’m OK with finding quality classic pieces. That’s why I love thrifting!!!! I just love all these finds!!! Those potholders also looked brand new, Kitchen Aid brand, and the cheery cherry pattern just makes me so happy! $3 for the pair! I love that they are short and so quick and easy to put on to pull stuff out of the oven. I have them hanging from magnetic hooks on the fridge right next to the oven now. Then there’s the brightly patterned sweater, and the brown loafers, and the two cute shirts and the Christmas picture book, two Easter chapter books, a knitting book, a Christmas traditions book, and to top it all off, Samuel Hahnemann’s Organon of Medicine, which is the Bible of homeopathy written by the founder of homeopathy himself!!!!! You can find it free online, but it’s so much nicer to have it in book format!!! What a deal!!! This was such a fabulous day for thrifting. Plus, my daughter found some clothes she wanted and some boots.

The haul above was just from one store. One the same day, I went to a another thrift store and found the goodies below.

I just love the sweater with its popcorn stitching and the eyelet top. I love that I found another copy of Emily Belle Freeman’s Christ Centered Christmas, after giving away my first copy to my married daughter when I stuffed her stocking on Christmas Eve. One book I found turned out to be a garbage book, that’s why I blacked it out in the photo. It’s in the landfill now. Maybe I should have burned it so no one else will find it :-). I was so thrilled to find the Necessary Lie. I heard the authors speak over a year ago at a fireside and bought the book for my husband for Christmas. It’s about a married couple who escaped North Korea. My husband binged on North Korea escapees for months so that book added to his binge. All in all the above totaled around $100 so I decided not to go thrifting until February.

I had a great post-Christmas Veggie Gals/Jolabokaflod lunch party on Jan. 3. This post here explains Jolabokaflod. Girlfriend Kathie hosted the grand event. She has a large, lovely home. Inside this large, lovely home she has a long dining room table that fit all 14 of us! Her tree shown below, is so beautiful, I’m sure you agree.

Oh, what delightful times! I invited some long-lost friends from Layton who I know from when I lived there, and they made the trek. Oh what joy comes from visiting with long-time, dearest girlfriends!

We had a yummy lunch, mostly carnivore for me. I had some of the low carb stuff like the soup and admired the tother beautiful carbs, such as the carb laden dish shown above, and did not partake.

After lunch, we then opened our white elephant books for our Jolabokkaflod book gift exchange.

Here’s one of my girlfriend’s reactions when she opened up her book.

It’s a book about the history of the ancient Filipino people. That’s my Veggie Gals for you! So interested, even downright giddy, in good things, even if they are ancient and obscure, to the point of never-even-heard-of-before.

Hostess with the Mostest Kathie had such a cool Lego Christmas Village display. How fun! I wonder how she stores all this during the rest of the year.

The following Sunday, I played the shortest Scrabble game of my life with my two sisters, one son and one daughter. My sister came from Maine to bring her daughter to BYU-Idaho (not the one she brought last fall) and spent some time with our side of the family and then her husband’s side. So we had a family gathering while they were in town, chatting, doing a puzzle, and playing Scrabble. What made it fast was that we each started with 10 letters and we agreed to do fast turns, because some of us, including me, dread the long turns that Scrabble tends to involve. (Bananagrams is so much better.) It was probably the worst game of Scrabble, i.e. lowest scoring game, I’ve ever played since I just put down the first word I could think of to keep to the time limit, but it was still fun.

I loved watching different videos of Gil Bates’ 60th birthday party, like the own below. His birthday, Jan. 1, is close to the birthday of my Girlfriend Mindy, Dec. 31. She turned 60 as well! It reminded me that my oldest brother is turning 60 this year too. What does this mean? My generation is old! Old is good though!

Below is Gil praying with his family before they have a big family dinner for his party. He’s such an amazing father. Watch the video above to hear his children singing his praises and telling stories. I just love all this!

I enjoyed watching this video that my husband’s cousin Lynne did regarding Joseph Smith and the environment he came from, including his family tree. Go here to watch. The two images below are from that video.

Solomon Mack was Joseph’s maternal grandfather. It’s so wonderful that he had a testimony of Jesus Christ to pass down to his posterity, as shown in the image above.

I was so happy to see that Sarah Mackenzie shared the above book in her video, which I have over here (scroll down to the very end for the video), recommending it as a book for moms to read to feel more joy. I have used it for Morning Basket with my son and gave it to my son-in-law for his January birthday. He got a set of books about Tolkien for Christmas from my daughter so he’s getting into Tolkien. I figured this would make his learning journey even more fun!

I enjoyed watching the presidential inauguration with my son for part of our homeschool day. I didn’t vote for Trump but still enjoyed it. Who knows how much of Pres. Trump’s speech was theatrics and how much is not? How sincere is Pres. Trump in invoking God’s name and appealing to the right? Is he just doing it all for show and to get more power? I don’t know. It was refreshing, however, to hear a U.S. President refer to God. I hope it’s for real.

I did enjoy seeing all the fashions of his family, at least the females, for the different events, the actual inauguration ceremony, and then the balls and dinners, and such, surrounding the whole thing. I didn’t love First Lady Melania’s hat, because it didn’t show her eyes. I agree that it also makes her look like Hamburglar from McDonalds, as someone on the Internet first said. (You have to be a Gen Xer or older to get that.) Some of my girlfriends liked it though, saying it’s a gangster hat. They said it made it look like she was telling her husband’s enemies to back off.

I love that the inauguration ceremony took place in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda. The paintings and the statues there have such a rich heritage of America’s godly past. Here’s more about that with a video that explains it all.

One of Trump’s daughters, Ivanka Trump, shows her gown for some of the inauguration gala events above and below. Courtesy of Ivanka Trump’s Instagram account. Both are so lovely although slightly immodest. I would never wear either except in my fantasy life :-). Oh, they are both just so beautiful. Wow! I know the above one is a copy of Audrey Hepburn’s dress in Sabrina but I don’t know about the other one.

I just love the way J.D. Vance’s wife is smiling at him during his swearing in as the new V.P. I wish for every husband to have such an adoring wife who looks at him like that. Then his little daughter sucking her thumb? So totally adorbs. She definitely looks like her daddy.

This is one of my VG girlfriend’s new phone wallpaper. It definitely made me smile.

I was sad to hear of Wayne Osmond’s passing. The video of his funeral including his brother Donny singing in a big family choir made me cry and smile. Watch it here, it’s posted below the story I tell of Donny’s mother giving away a Book of Mormon to the Queen of England. I just love the Osmonds. What a great family that has brought so much light, laughter, and love into the world.

Hearing about this new board game coming out in 2025 made me smile for sure. Not that I’ve ever knitted anything. I’m just in love with the idea and hope to do it someday. The game is a standalone sequel to Calico, which I reviewed here.

Here’s is what some of the pieces look like. Looks fun and cozy!

Speaking of knitting, wearing my sweaters continued to keep me happy. I love that I can wear one of my new thrifted sweaters with so many different pants or skirts! I just love the snowflake necklace too that I got in my Christmas stocking, pretty sure from my married daughter playing Santa. I love that I can wear it with so many different tops. I know I posted this last month, but this sweater and necklace continue to make me smile so much. 🙂

I decided that I want to resume my reading of the Saints books, from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. A few years ago, I read Vol. 1, I think maybe Vol 2. as well. I started Vol. 3 and never finished. I decided to read them backwards this year, starting with Vol 4 , then Vol. 3, and so forth. I think if I do it that way I will remember the stories in the books better for some reason. So, I’m in Vol. 4 and reading it almost every night on my phone with the black background until I fall asleep. You can read all the volumes here for free or get them in hard copy as well for a cost. Put the Gospel Library app on your phone and then you can read on your phone.

In January, I started mentoring my LEMI Hero Project Class with my 15-year-old son and 3 other students. We played the Diplomacy board game the first day, just to get them interested in the politics of Europe, which is part of the back story of WW1 and WW2. I love that two of my son’s best friends (he has about 3) love to play board games like I do and that we can borrow games from them, like this Diplomacy game.

Seeing snow outside my front window, with my fun New Year’s/Valentine’s decorations and twinkly star lights, made me smile with the hygge-ness of it all. It’s hard to tell but the window has my paper snowflakes on it.

Attending a Mock Caldecott Award Night at a local public library was so much fun! I loved seeing all these picture books that came out in 2024 that I didn’t even know about! Here’s a recap over here. This is definitely something to look forward to every January.

We had a birthday party for three family members on a Sunday night, Zooming in the two sons and their families from Texas. My son-in-law, my younger daughter, and one of my daughters-in-law each have a January birthday. I just love it when we can all get together, even if some of them are on the screen. We sing “Happy Birthday,” say a compliment or memory about the birthday person, while the in-person people east the birthday treat, and open gifts. Sometimes we play a Jackbox game, or another game, or I show photos of the birthday person/people, especially older ones. I love it that my daughter asked to use one of my ice cream parfait glasses to serve her husband his birthday treat. These glasses sit on the top shelf of my hutch with my Christmas -that-fit-into-Valentine-aesthetic mugs, shown below.

I finished on average a book a week in January. My favorite was the Kisses From Katie book, for my online Shumway Sisters’ Book Club. So, then I binged on a bunch of Katie’s videos in YouTube.

If you don’t know who Katie is, go read the above book and start finding podcast and YouTube interviews with her like the one above. She’s a godly woman who has adopted over a dozen girls from Africa in addition to having two biological sons. She also started a nonprofit organization to help children in Africa. So amazing!

I also read/finished these books. Some of them I started before this month, but I finished them all in January. Then here are all the books I completed in 2024.

Then of course I had fun with new sweater combos. Over here I have more of my sweater combos for winter.

I got this Little Women T-shirt from my trip to Orchard House last summer. I love that it can go with so many different sweaters: white, tan, gold, black, yellow, and teal.

Then this one can go with yellow, white, black, red, teal, gray, and tan. So versatile!

That’s a wrap! Now to get February’s PHFR/Things That Made Me Smile post!