End of February Fun!

The last 2 weeks of February were full of fun and adventure...and flu bugs :). Life is just full and crazy, I'm so glad that I can use my phone to capture so many of these small moments that make up our days. Here we have Kenzie and Carter at lunch one day with a special friend, Woof Woof. Woof Woof is Makenzie's constant companion these days. She insists on sleeping with him, and half the time she won't eat unless he is in her audience. She just has a fun personality and is becoming her own person more every day.

Olivia loves to organize just like her mom. Sometimes, however, she gets herself in trouble because she pulls everything out and sorts it into piles...and then gets distracted by the next activity :). Putting the organized toys/books/clothes back away isn't her specialty just yet, but we are working on it.

Speaking of organizing, I have restarted some of my old home organization and am a much more efficient Mom. I use this spreadsheet to plan my cleaning, extra activities for the week, monthly projects, meals, and random notes. I love it, even if I'm a huge nerd for admitting that. We also have the kids working on chore charts most days. If i'm being honest, we usually go in spurts of a week or so using it, then off for a while, but it gives us something to reference when the kids don't seem to be helping enough.

This 15 month old refuses to be fed by her parents. This means that her meals go everywhere and are quite an adventure. For this particular night, I tried to feed her twice (hence the two spoons) and finally just let her have her bowl of lasagna soup. She totally loved it, and ate 2 entire bowls before she was done.

At least once a week I get about 100 pictures taken on my phone by kids. Usually these are all close-ups of someone's nose or legs, but this time Olivia took some cute pics while the kids were playing with Dad. I love our crazy, messy life!

At the end of February, Alex went to a conference in LA for work. That meant a few days with no backup or kid free time for me, so I tried to get creative about activities as a sanity-saving strategy. One afternoon we spent some time doing learning worksheets, and the kids sent these pictures to dad of their accomplishments. I just love their faces...total fake smile by O and Hulk face by C.

While the kids were working on learning pages, Kenzie serenaded us with her newfound skill of playing the piano without help getting up. The sounds are much sweeter when she has to stretch for the highest keys than when I sit her on the bench, so we are all for this form of accompaniment.

We spent one day with a big Target run, which ended up being SUPER challenging with our first major kid meltdown in a store in over a year. Yes, it was the 5 yo who melted down, and yes I did have to tell some sweet Grandma that she couldn't buy my disobedient child candy to calm her down. It was one of those trips to the store :). However, I found a cute baby outfit and some cheap chocolate to get me through the afternoon, and the kids were thrilled with their clearance slippers.

Just a fun picture of Carter and his sweet friends...and my sweet friend :) walking together after a school dropoff.

Hitting 26 weeks at the end of the month means it's time for the lovely glucose test! Honestly I don't mind this as much as a lot of people I know, but it always makes me nervous because I have been a borderline failure every time I've taken it. This time, however, was much different. Lime flavor is totally drinkable, and the sugar high that I should have been having was transferred to the kids, who spent the extra time waiting at the doctor in a major dance-off. It was a totally successful 2 hours at the doctor, if that can even be said of any 2 hours at the doctor.

Here are some pictures that Alex sent home from his conference. He always sends home pics of food that he's eating, while i'm eating leftover mac'n'cheese and a corn dog that a kid didn't finish. I spend a lot of time jealous while he's gone :)

This was just a fun counting activity that Carter and I did one morning. He totally loved rolling the dice and counting the cheerios...and eating the cheerios :)

We met the Rules for another super fun play date! We try pretty regularly to get all the kids together for a picture, and it's never easy. I love the next series of 4 pictures because it shows what happens every single time we try for this picture...Grayson's face in pic #3 just kills me every time. He knows exactly what he did and is thrilled with himself about it :). As a note, the kids involved in fighting changes every day, and is utterly unpredictable. Our kids are the best of friends, and with that comes the best of enemies some days. Life is hard when you're 5 or 3.

Yay for Daddy being home!! we celebrated with a gymnastics meet and make your own pizza night.

At the end of February, Kenzie learned how to 'jump' (she bends her knees and stands up really fast) and she says 'choo-choo' for trains. She also says 'choo choo' for planes and trucks and tractors and boats, but we are working on that part. I took these next couple pictures one morning when her bed hed was out of control. Her little curls are so precious, and I love how crazy they make her hair look after sleeping for any amount of time.

Valentine's Week

Valentine's Day turns into a week-long - and sometime's month-long - event at our house. I love the easy opportunity that this holiday gives to show our kids and loved ones some of the special things we love about them. I didn't get any pictures, but every year we have mailboxes that fill up *almost* daily with a special note or treat for the kids from Alex or I. This year Alex was the big winner when he made this Hulk Valentine for Carter one day. Carter carried it around for over a week, and was often heard muttering 'Hulk smashing day' wherever he was. 

One of my favorite things to do with O around the holidays is to find special day-specific hair. This year's heart creation (Thanks 100% to a youtube hair stylist with MUCH more creativity and talent than me) turned out beautiful, and was a huge hit. Apparently her school teacher took her around to a couple other classrooms to show it off, and her dance teacher took pictures so she could try to recreate later. O loves this special attention, she spent all day asking people if they had seen her hearts :).

O has formed a special friendship with 5 little girls in her TK class that are all afternoon friends (the class splits and half arrive 2 hours earlier). We have a hard time scheduling play dates and following through (someone is always sick), so we decided to have a Valentine's tea party for all of them together. It was a huge hit, and may have to happen again in the future :)

Carter was so happy to have 2 friends coming to the party as well, it made his day. He insisted on getting into his tea party clothes just like Olivia was :). His Spiderman costume fit in perfectly. 

After the girls arrived, they got to use crayons to rub magic love messages on some artwork. I didn't do a good job documenting all of the activities, but this was a super easy kid craft that we will definitely do again. 

The other craft that Olivia picked was heart shaped sun catchers. a little card stock, some contact paper, and tissue paper made a great party activity :). You can kind of see them in the background of the next picture. The girls were so cute, sharing with each other and giving each other strongly worded advice. It's easy to see that this little group is inseparable at school, and they try to be just as inseparable on the off days :).

These kids were all so cute decorating their cookies. The boys had a little more supervision, so the girls had crazy piles of sprinkles on their plates. However, the girls had less to take home, some of them couldn't stop eating while they decorated :).

Somehow I don't have any pictures of the actual tea party. We started by talking about some of the ways that princesses act at a tea party, then served heart shaped tea sandwiches, fruit salad with heart shaped fruit, pink sprinkle dipped wafers, and pretzels. They also got to drink their 'tea' (raspberry lemonade) with licorice straws from heart cups.

All in all a very successful party, and a great way to celebrate such a fun group of friends for O.

We skipped the cleanup of the party (or procrastinated it at least) and went to the OSU @ Cal Men's Basketball game that afternoon. I have a super cute little beaver fan who insisted on wearing his beaver hat even though it was quite warm.

After the game we went out for snow ice cream at Vampire Bakery. It has become my favorite dessert place in the Bay Area, everything I have had has been wonderful.

All of these fun activities happened the day before Valentine's Day, and I realized that evening that I hadn't planned anything for the actual holiday. Luckily all you need for a great holiday breakfast is a cookie cutter and some colored sprinkles :). The kids were totally impressed, and I get a pass for prepared mom!

The most exciting part of our day happened a little while after breakfast. While I was cleaning it up, the kids were playing happily in the living room. Maybe they were playing a little too happily, because when I looked into the room I saw them dumping an entire bottle of Febreze onto the floor. It just smells too good to spray once! I went to grab a towel or two to soak up what I could, and when I was working on that, Makenzie (with an unidentified helper) opened the fridge and started pulling stuff out. The one thing that she found that could be spilled was a carton of 1/2 & 1/2 that I had purchased for Alex and my at-home date night that evening...no fondue for us :(. The 1/2 & 1/2 made it all over the kitchen floor, the oven, and Kenzie, so another cleanup effort was needed. After I mopped that up and got Kenzie changed, I turned on a movie, grabbed some chocolate, and headed to my room for a while. Sometimes Mom just needs a break :).

Dad was working that day, so the kids and I spent the morning making some Valentines for people we love. It was fun to reiterate the meaning behind the holiday for the kids, and to hear some of the creative things that they love about their friends and family. My personal favorite: 'I made you this card to help you be happy because I am your best friend and you are sad when I'm not with you'...to Auntie Em from Olivia :)

The day after Valentine's was President's Day, so Alex and Emily (and everyone else on the planet) had the day off. I was so glad that Emily called to do something together, so we decided to brave Muir Woods National Forest. It was a beautiful forest with paths throughout the trees. It was a very serene place, until we showed up at least! The kids were super excited to explore, and not super quiet about it.

My favorite part of any family activity near a bridge: Pooh Sticks :) I can't remember who won, but we were surprised that a few of them even made it through based on their weight...maybe next time I will help the kids find sticks to use.

My little Sleeping Beauty didn't quite make it through the whole outing.