Each month I'll be doing a look back at what we're loving, highlighting some events and definitely checking in on my goals. Here's a look back at January.

After a long break from it I started drinking tea again. I'm a fan of loose leaf and I usually pick up my favorite brews at Teavana. Now that I'm drinking tea again, I'm trying to resist this amazing electric tea kettle that has been on my Amazon wish list for quite a while.

I am loving the heyday app, which I actually started using back in December when it was released. The app basically uses your GPS and your photos to remind you of locations you've visited. You can add your own journaling and it automatically creates collages of the photos you took, it does a pretty good job on the collages too.

Downton Abbey is back and there are some heart wrenching story lines going on at the Abbey this season. Sherlock is back too, though these seasons are way short (only four episodes), and Watson gets married! I'm a sucker for weddings.

Mid-month we held a memorial brunch for my younger brother Alex, on the 10th anniversary of his death. It was a really nice day spending time with family and eating good food. My aunt made a wonderful collage of pictures, many of which I want to include in his memorial photo book (one of my goals for this year).

Reya and I (and I'm guessing many of you moms too) have the Frozen soundtrack playing on repeat. I'm not ashamed to admit that we both sing at the tops of our lungs especially in the car. My favorite is "Do you want to build a snowman?" (though I cry almost every time).

At 9 months, Little Lola's 8th tooth (yes 8th!) finally broke through and she has started standing. Growing up way too fast and trying to keep up with her big sister.

Its winter in LA and its still only rained once (January 30) in over 40 days. For the good of everyone's sinuses, not to mention our water supply, we need some rain!

The girls and I finally visited the South Bay Botanical Garden. Its huge and has some great areas for kids, including the Garden of the Senses, a greenhouse, and a children's garden with nursery rhyme characters. We picked up a family membership so we'll definitely be visiting again and we can visit many other botanical gardens in the area, including Rancho Santa Ana which is a long time family fave.

Reya got a new desk from Ikea along with some accessories from The Land of Nod. We had been doing homework on the kitchen table or on daddy's desk but now she has her own special place and she loves it.

Update on my crafty goals

I finished Labor Day on Jan 23, had to buy this one for the kindle since I was starting late and it was all checked out at the library. I rated it three stars, some good parts, but just okay overall. I'm hoping to see the movie this weekend to see what Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin do with the characters. Also, I've added a widget on the sidebar to track my progress towards my reading goal ------>

I created 2 out of 4 goal layouts and have one more sketched and ready for February. Here's a link to a digital layout I created with a Simple Scrapper template. Below is a sneak peak of the second layout, I'll be doing a full reveal later later this month when I share more about completing the Hello Story class.

No home decor projects completed so I'm hoping to get two done in February. But if not that's okay too.

No sorting, rating, tagging of my photos. I need to put this item on my calendar each week so I have a set time when I'm doing this. Since it can be a pretty boring task I'd normally push this one off unless I make it a recurring appointment.

Completed my One Little Word February layout here.

I kept up with Project Life all month and my next update will post later this week.

Thanks for taking a look back with me. Any highlights or updates from January you want to share? I'd love to hear about them so be sure to leave a comment.