January we celebrated two birthdays and did a lot of skiing!

“I can’t remember all the times I tried to tell myself to hold on to these moments as they pass.”

Welcome to “Moments” here on JoyFoodSunshine. This is when I interrupt my typical recipe content, and take time to share our family’s favorite moments from the month! Here it is for January 2026!

My​ Favorite Things​ – January! ♥️

Here are my 7 favorite things for January. And don’t forget to check out my ​Amazon storefront​ ​(mostly kitchen related) and ​ShopMy (everything!) ​for all my favorite things.

• ​Ugg Slippers.​ My daughter turned fifteen and these were on her wishlist. They’re cozy and cute!
• ​Mascara.​ She also asked for this ​Sweed mascara.​ I was sent some as a gift and she ended up using it and falling in love!
• ​Silicone Oven Mitts. I​ just have to give a plug for ​these​ because I’m in love with ​them​. Even if they get wet they still protect your hands from the heat. Plus they’re easy to clean and cute. ​Oven Mitts on Amazon.
• ​Portable Phone Charger. I cannot stress enough how much I rely on this and use it. ​​I don’t leave home without it.
• ​Espresso Machine. ​If your New Year’s resolution is to make coffee at home more often, you need this ​espresso machine.​ I’ve had it for 2 years now and I rarely go out for coffee anymore. Today my husband asked me if I wanted him to bring me home a drink from Starbucks and I said no, that’s how much I love my coffee from this ​Espresso machine.​ Buy on Amazon: ​Espresso Machine. ​
• Vitamix Blender.​ It’s that time of the year when ​smoothies​ are trending and so I have to plug my favorite kitchen item of all time –​ my Vitamix. ​I use this ​high-end Vitamix​ as well as this more ​budget-friendly Vitamix​ every day. They both blend equally well so don’t feel like you have to get the top of the line for amazing blends. I prefer to purchase from Vitamix directly, but you can buy them on Amazon as well: ​Vitamix X5 ​and ​Vitamix E310.

Recipes I’m Making on Repeat

Here are some recipes we made this month! Click on the photo or name to go to the recipe!

Instagram Highlight

This month I shared a healthy dessert series on Instagram and you all loved this video for healthy no bake cookies! Recipe: https://joyfoodsunshine.com/healthy-no-bake-chocolate-peanut-butter-cookies/

NEW January Recipes

How to make Oatmeal | Grapefruit Smoothie | Beef and Broccoli | Greek Chicken Salad | Sausage Pasta | Teriyaki Chicken and Teriyaki Sauce | Pizza Chicken | Chicken Fried Rice | Green Smoothie

Birthdays – Z turns FIVE!!!

I still can’t believe it has been five years since I had my last baby. Having babies was so much a part of who I was for over a decade, that it’s really hard to look at my little guy and think “he’s so not a baby anymore.”

But it’s true – he is five. He loves playing the guitar more than almost anything (except for maybe dinosaurs). He got a red electric guitar for Christmas, and asked for a blue electric guitar cake for his birthday. I made this chocolate sheet cake and vanilla frosting, and my husband cut out the shape and decorated it! Z loved it so much, and I think Ritch did an amazing job.

Unfortunately we were all pretty sick on his Birthday (and most of January), so we got to celebrate but are still waiting to go to the Dinosaur museum until we’re all 100%. But he still had the best day and we had so much fun celebrating him.

B is FIFTEEN!

Even more, I can’t believe it has been fifteen years since I had my first baby! She is thriving in her first year of school outside of our home, and is about to start driver’s ed (which I actually am pumped about, can’t wait for her to be able to drive herself to practice and school haha)!

Her birthday was a Monday, so it was the first time she wasn’t home during the day to celebrate! But, we still made sure she felt extra special.

Most of the kids request dinner from a restaurant on their birthday, (because we do not eat out often, so it’s a treat). But B still gives me something to do when it’s her special day and requests homemade meals all day long! 😉

For breakfast she wanted cinnamon rolls – which she has had every year on her birthday since she was 3, and for dessert she requested this dirt cake for dessert!

For dinner she wanted chicken enchiladas and orzo salad – so I happily made her both!

It was so fun celebrating her at night with all her delicious food and lots of presents!

Snapshots

Some special moments from January.

Skiing – even though we have gotten basically zero snow here in Utah, we are still using our Ikon passes as much as we’re able. We started with a day at Deer Valley. We put the kids in ski school and Ritch and I skied together all day. It was still fun even with a lot of the resort not being open.

We usually ski on Wednesdays (benefit of homeschooling). But now that be is in school we had to make sure to schedule some Saturday ski days so she could join us. This month we did one at Deer Valley and it was perfect. Not as crowded as we anticipated and the weather was beautiful.

We are helping a friend to a “Flat Stanley” project and so we’ve enjoyed taking pics with it! Here’s us baking together!

G was in a science fair for our homeschool co op. We are so proud of him because he did his very best and put a lot of work into his project! He even made his board light up!

5 year old math!

Otherwise honestly we were so sick this month that we didn’t really do much. I kind of loved having to be a hermit all month long – even though I have never been so sick.