February Wrap Up

Tomorrow is the last day of February and I'm pretty sure it couldn't have gone by any faster. Between a birthday, a day of love, school, and just regular life, our days have been full, sometimes with absolutely nothing, but they still have flown. I think this is the nature of our life right now. So now I catch up on some of our random activities that have propelled us through the month of love. .

The kids think Joe is the "best dad they have ever had." This always makes me laugh. He doesn't have to do much to have them singing his praises. Early in month he earned the rave reviews when he, not only set up this fort with their own separate rooms, but "slept " (a term I use loosely for this night) downstairs with them so they wouldn't be scared to spend the entire night in the best fort ever. This effort is one of the things that makes me feel lucky to have Joe as mine!
Adam spent the night in his own bed, but sure enjoyed the movie night we had before bed time so he could play in the fort too.

Valentine's Day. A day of love! For me Valentine's Day is kind of like Thanksgiving. I always know I love my husband and my children and think how that fact every day, but this day is a nice to set aside as reminder of how lucky I feel to have such a wonderful family to love.

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The Sunday before Valentines Day my mom made the effort to get all the grandkids into a picture to send to Elder DJ. I don't think she was ever successful at getting all the kids to participate at the same time, but it was humorous to watch.

Joe suprised me and took me on a overnight date on the weekend, but the actual Valentine's Day was more about the kids. Holidays are so much fun, making them fun for kids. Right now it takes so little to make them happy. Noah kept saying, "This is the best day ever" What did we do to make it so? About the most exciting this we did was send them on a scavenger hunt to find their Valentine treats followed by a dinner of pizza and individual sparkling ciders. Really, simplest thing ever, but they loved it.
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I had to laugh at how much fun they had with the scavenger hunt and how seriously they took it. This may have to become a tradition. Chloe, being the resident reader of the family, wants to read everything she sees on her own so I tried hard to use as many words that she knew or could sound out as I could.

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Some of our clues were:

In the room where the laundry starts,

Go find yourself a Chocolate Heart.

You kids we love to pieces and pieces,

And to show you, in our room, we have hidden some Reeses.

You love our car that's shiny and new,

We think you will like this stuffed friend too .

and by far the kids favorite (I wrote it because I knew it would be):

You kids make us laugh even when you say "fart"

Trot your noise making behinds to the table to find your box of hearts.

The laughter that comes out of them cracks me up. I need to follow my dad's example though and get them to "elevate the level of conversation in this house". It's still pretty funny though.

Chloe took the hunt seriously. She got out of her skirt and into "matching" (how many times can I use quotation marks today) leggings and donned her trusty lightsabers in case they came across anyone trying to steal their treats.

Kiddos with their treats

I tried to get a picture of the kids I love on Valentines Day, but Adam was having none of it.

Moving on to another fun day, just a few more pictures from Chloe's birthday. Chloe got to wear a crown at school and have a special cover on her chair for her birthday. She also got to bring a special treat to share with her classmates. Being in charge of handing out the treats may have been her favorite part of the day.

After looking through her birthday pictures, Chloe also made the special request that I "post these two pictures on the internet that is about our family".

Present opening

Pocahantas doll. Cracked me up that she wanted this doll because she has yet to it through the entire movie, but she hasn't slept without it since her birthday.

So many Chloe pictures, I need to add some of my favorite little boys too. Here is Noah playing with a camera.

"Here's a cool picture for you to take mom."

Adam. Last week I went on a girls night with my mom and sisters. So. Much. Fun. Living so close to each other I think we take the nearness for granted. Most of our time spent together is with kids and in chaos. I loved getting to do dinner and shopping with them and getting to feel immature for a few hours. Although by the end I think my mom was a little embarrassed to be associated with us, it was a great night. I only wish I had gotten a picture of us all together. What does this have to do with Adam? Well while I didn't get a picture of girls night, I did get a picture during it, sent to me by Joe, of Adam having an allergic reaction. Poor little guy.

After waiting to see if it would go away and wondering if I would need to cut the night short to meet Joe at the hospital (he said Adam seemed to be having a little bit of difficulty breathing too) the hives disappeared and he went back to looking like this:

So that wraps up our February as best I can, and I can't help but be excited for the month to officially come to an end, not because it's been a bad month, because it has been pretty good to us, but because it takes us that much closer to spring days, warm weather, playing outside, and swimming. I say: "I can't wait."

PS Can I just say that I hate how whenever I edit a post the spacing between paragrahs and pictures goes a little crazy. If anyone knows what I am doing wrong or how to avoid that, fill me in!