The End of February

Unfortunately, Dad getting home didn't make this kid's cold go away. Poor little guy has a mean mom who takes pictures of his impressive snot bubbles to show his dad. He did get held most of the day though, so I figure we're even. 

Looking back at these pictures, I realize that by the end of February we were a bit stir crazy. It was a very long winter, with SO much snow, and it's hard to get 4 kids under 7 out into the snow with only one grownup, so we did most of our play inside. Sometimes we had fun, organized activities like Fruit Loop graphing, and sometimes not so much (mattress sliding down the stairs. I write this blog 3 weeks into March, and we are still looking forward to our first sunny weekend...

Anyway, on this rainy weekend when Dad was working, I made a math activity for the kids. I loved seeing their excitement as they figured out each step (sorting, counting, tally, bar graph) and how two of the kids were SO careful not to eat any before it was time (Carter even counted the 1/2 ones), but Makenzie ate 3 for every 1 that she sorted :).

That evening, as we were waiting for Alex to get home from his basketball game, I got a little desperate and just let the kids rip up magazines on the kitchen floor. Surprisingly, they had just as much fun cleaning up as they did making the mess, so it was a total success in my book!

Hunter has officially graduated to real kid food, and he couldn't be more excited. He is nine months old, so it's a little early, and we still buy baby food for when I'm lazy or we are eating out, but most of the time we can just chop up whatever we are all eating. He enjoys any liquid (yogurt, applesauce, pudding) because we are too lazy - or busy - to feed him so he gets to paint his tray while he eats.

Alex had one Sunday where he didn't work and I desperately needed a break, so I got to do the Costco run solo. Costco officially beat me though. By the last few aisles, the nice sample ladies were telling me I either needed to stop shopping or get another cart, and the checkout guy got me a big cart, which has never happened before. I might have been enjoying my time to myself a little too much :)

One afternoon the temperatures got into the 40s, so we headed outside for some bikeriding :). I just love looking at their faces as they go by.

As we were going inside, I noticed Kenzie's little pony coming out of the helmet, she never stops amazing me with her cuteness!

This was President's Day, so we had a LOT of time inside at home again. When I was folding laundry in the loft and I heard the laughter getting suspiciously loud, walked over to find this fun sight. I was mostly just impressed that they made a barrier for Hunter so he wouldn't follow them down the stairs ;).

One fun part of February was officially beginning our after school activities in Pullman. This seems like such a little thing, but I am feeling increasingly like a chauffeur, so we were pretty slow getting started in activities after we moved here. I let each of the kids choose a sport for the spring, and Olivia chose swimming over soccer, baseball, and dance. I am thrilled that she enjoys lessons so much, because she has been our water baby since she was young, and she is totally ready to be swimming independently.

Dad gave Hunter applesauce and pudding to teach him about color combinations ;)

And the last weekend of February, just in case we thought we were ready for spring, we got another snow storm, complete with 6ish" of wet, Oregon-type snow. This was the first time we could really make snowballs or snowmen with our snow, so we brought everyone out to the yard for some tame sledding and playing. Hunter had his first real time playing in the snow, and felt totally ambivalent about it.

As soon as we put Hunter down, all the kids flocked to him, trying to convince him that he loved the whole experience. I'm sure he will be happier when he can walk through it next year.

Kenz wasn't as excited about snow angels as the rest of the kids...she really couldn't handle laying down at all :).

I'm just  going to pretend that this particular sledding trip didn't end with a baby flat on his face in the snow...

Baby bird :)

Getting out the door with all the kids dressed at 8:10 is always an adventure. Some days we don't really care about getting the younger kids dressed, but if we are going grocery shopping or have other errands to run, it's another story. Most days end up with my running frantically around grabbing lunch boxes, boots, blankets, and sippy cups while I beg the older kids to get coats and shoes on and get to the car. We always make it, but we don't always make it happily and I can't remember the last time I had hair or makeup done. One particularly hard morning, Hunter had a blowout at the tail end of the process, so all of the older kids were waiting in the car for a while. I came down to this and suddenly it didn't even matter that we were a couple minutes late.

We also officially completed our collection of 9-11 month old babies climbing into the fridge and loving it :). I have no idea why I have taken this picture with each baby, but it's interesting to note that they were taken in 4 different houses, 4 different fridges, and in 3 different states (Olivia - Fresno, and Makenzie - Concord were both in California). We have moved our little family too many times, but the fridge contents have remained pretty constant!

The last picture is just a brag on myself, because I finally did meal prep for the week for lunches. I happened to have leftover taco meat and brown rice from the week, so I added some veggies and called it good. I will definitely do this kind of meal prep again, it was perfect to have a reason to not eat the PBJ or mac-n-cheese that I was making for the kids, and Alex's lunches were ready to go without thinking about it. A perfect de-stresser for our mornings.