Catch-Up

I guess I haven't been in a blogging mood. It seems when I come to the computer these days it's been to blog-hop. Lots of fun ideas out there and I actually did some of them this month. But, now I've got some pictures on from February, so I'll tell you what we've been up to.

Every month the school has a fun dress-up day. Last month was pajama day and since we'd missed crazy hair day, we decided to combine them. So, Ben got his first mohawk. He loved it, but mom and dad insisted it get cut off before church on Sunday! In this picture you can also see the snowflake he made for school. He cut, painted and glittered it all by himself. I still enjoy walking him to school each morning. It's only a few minutes, but it's just the two of us and that's kind of nice.

Sarah is enjoying her ballet. Although, there have been a few times I've tried to use it as an incentive, "you won't get to go to ballet unless you clean up your room/take your nap/put away your clothes/be a good girl." You get the picture. Well, she says, "fine, I won't go to ballet then." Doesn't seem to work with her. Not sure if she just doesn't care about ballet or if she knows I won't follow through on that one! Here she is showing me her bow (that's ow, not oh).

I found this magnetic puzzle of the United States on clearance and, as you can see, the whole family has enjoyed putting it together. I'm hoping Ben will learn his states better than his mom.

So, I missed the perfect picture here. I came in to get Joshua, who'd been crying for a bit. He was sitting down with his legs stuck out between the slats. I picked him up before realizing how jail-like that was. I grabbed a few pictures, but the effect isn't the same as him looking through the "bars" of his cell!

During the month of February, Joshua learned to crawl, pull himself up, sit, (in that order!). He also acquired 3 new teeth, causing him a lot of pain, and many cranky days and nights. He would much prefer to walk. If we hold his fingers and walk him around he has a path he follows from one end of the house to the other. When our backs get tired, and we put him down, he hollers! We tried a walker this past weekend, but he couldn't get past the fact that we'd "stuck" him in something and learn to move himself. I think he'll be walking soon. He's been able to stand for a few seconds, too. Now that he is mobile, we've had to take the necessary baby precautions. I'm constantly reminding the other two to pick up their paper and garbage. More than once he's stuck his hands in Sarah's leftover mush. (Yes, I know I shouldn't let the kids eat in the living room in front of the TV, but it's just so cold in the dining room in the winter time!) We've pulled paper, wrapper garbage, ear plugs, even gum and it's wrapper from his mouth. We had a miraculous moment a few weeks ago. We've done our best to block off entrance to the wood stove - because it's hot. Well, one day I heard him crying in the living room and it was the I'm really hurt cry. I came running and found him on the tile surround bumping his head on the little lip in front of the stove door. I grabbed him and ran to the bathroom, immediately putting his hands under cold water. His hands were fine, he kept crying because the water was cold. I checked his head and he had two spots that were red. I thought they couldn't be more than first degree burns, but they disappeared before the end of the day - in just a few hours really. I went back to the stove and touched the legs to see how hot they were. They were hot enough that I wasn't willing to test the lip. I can't believe he wasn't hurt more, but am so grateful. We really haven't come to any other decisions about how to keep him out so I really watch him when he's on the floor and there's a fire. At least it will be warmer soon and we won't have to worry about it until next winter. Maybe he'll be old enough then to understand "HOT". (that was one of Ben's first words!)

I made some fun countdowns for Valentine's Day. I got the ideas elsewhere and just kind of went with it. I bought the heart box for $3 at Walmart and promptly emptied the chocolates, yes, into my mouth. I think it took 2 days. I modpodged the papers on the front and added some ribbon and embellishments. I wrote the ideas directly on my decorative paper and modpodged them to the glass rocks. I actually had only little ones and used them. But, they were just too small, so I bought bigger ones and redid that part. The kids loved taking turns each day, picking out the next surprise.

This one can be found herehttp://www.somewhatsimple.com/2010/01/countdown-to-valentines-day.html

In my "research" I came across the Love Actually blog and just love it!

http://www.loveactually-blog.blogspot.com/

It has so many ideas for romantic things to do for cheap! I thought it would be fun to make a countdown jar with her ideas and put this together for Kannon and I. It included stuff like 2-minute massages and emails to each other. I think we both enjoyed it enough to use it again next year.

For our craft (one of the countdown items) we made crayon stained-glass hearts.

We did homemade pizza a few times this month. One time I made a heart-shaped one.

We spent a whole Saturday in Yerington watching basketball with some friends. Kannon became friends with RA at work quite a few years ago. Turned out he is the younger brother to a childhood friend of mine. We all went to church together when we were kids! They have 2 boys that are 6 and 7, just right for Ben. We see them every so often and these boys have always gotten along real well. The boys are in a basketball league and Kannon wanted to take Ben to watch. I told him I wanted to go, too, so we all piled in and spent the day with them.

Thomas and Ben

The week before Valentine's Day I let Ben invite a few friends over to decorate cookies. They had a good time playing and frosting the cookies. It was a fiasco in my opinion. I thought they would want to cut out the cookies, too. But, they didn't. So Sarah and I did that while they played. Then when they were baked and cooled I called them in. The cookies were crumbly - that makes frosting them kind of hard. I made 2 different kinds of frosting and everything was just a general mess. I was so tired by the end of the day with all the cookie and frosting making, so Kannon cleaned up for me. He's so good about that. He does a lot of cleaning up for me and after me.

I ended up baking bread and cinnamon rolls that week, too, and Kannon cleaned up each time. I volunteered to help out in Ben's class for their party. They got to decorate cookies, make a heart bear, and check out their valentines. Plus, there were some snacks. I was glad it was veggies, fruit and chips with dip instead of a ton of sugary stuff.

That night, the 12th, Kannon and I went on a date - WITHOUT the baby! That was fun. We went to the schools' auction fundraising dinner. It was good food and we enjoyed watching everyone bid outrageous prices for everything. Kannon was laid off that week, so we didn't spend anything other than the tickets we had bought in advance. I take that back. I had a $20 I needed to break to pay the babysitter, so I bought some raffle tickets. And guess, what!? I won. Well, one prize, anyway. As they went down the list and called numbers, I said, "I'll probably win this one" - it was for a tour of the winery with wine tasting. And it was the one I won. Crazy, eh? At least they combined 2 prizes. I also won a basket of goodies from Raley's. I told them to pick a new winner for the wine deal. But, I enjoyed most of the basket. It had Dove chocolates, a box of chocolates, a bath pouf, some red kitchen items, and a few things I thought I'd save and give as gifts as needed.

I know I've mentioned before about Ben playing basketball. This month consisted of a game or two each week. I was glad this was a short sport. The team won their last 2 games (out of 6 total). I guess that says they improved. Ben did okay. He loved to have the ball passed to him, but then immediately got rid of it - either passed it to someone else or took a shot. All of his shots were too far away. I think he could really improve if he continues to play and practice.

In this pic he is the blue player facing the camera.

I mentioned the lay-off thing. It was only for a week, then they found a job to place him on. But, now he is off again. This time they said, go find a new job, we don't have anything else. It's bad all over the state for his kind of work. There are only jobs for tig welders, which is not a type he is used to doing, or feels like he can do a good job on. I told him to take a few weeks and go to Reno each day to practice so that he can get a new job. We are trying to be faithful, that we will be given the opportunity for work to continue to meet our needs and obligations.
I stay pretty busy. I also go crazy fairly regularly. Just ask my family. I think it shows most at night when I'm up - again - with the baby. He just doesn't sleep well. He wakes up so much, sometimes every hour or two. He eats and falls asleep, but often cries as soon as I put him down, or even better, waits until I've just gotten back in bed! Last night I just let him cry. I was so tired and didn't want to hurt him. I also really stress about weight loss or lack of. I really want to get healthy again, but don't think it will happen until I can figure out WHY I eat.

Anyway, that's our life for the month of February. This year is already flying by.