February Finishes

February has a way of going by in a flash!  We had a few days off school which helps to make this short month even shorter. 

T and I managed to get out on our anniversary date the weekend after.  We hit up The Keg for a delicious meal then we headed over to one of my favorite city festivals.  We have never been at night so it was fun to take it all in.  We brought our skates but sadly the lake wasn't open for skating due to some seriously rough ice from all the melting and freezing.  We loved checking out all the beautiful ice sculptures and lanterns in the pretty night lights.

 We warmed up with some hot chocolate while waiting for the fire sculpture to be lit.  For years we have seen these amazing willow sculptures built but never gone back late enough to see them ablaze.  There is a big legend about burning all the bad away in our life and starting fresh.  The fire was huge, the pic just doesn't capture it.  The lights around it made all the smoke look like purple as it danced it the sky; very magical.  We enjoyed a live jazz singer as we sat around a smaller bonfire afterwards.

 The next morning I joined the kids for swim lessons.  I loved seeing all the progress they are making.

 A small miracle but this kid can actually float on his back for like 15 secs!  This is huge.  A big part of this was a two hour swim date my buddy had alone at the pool with his dad the day before.

 Kind of out of order but earlier in the week I decided to try my hand at making play dough.  It turned out great and the kids loved it.  Way less crumbs then the store bought variety which makes for a happier mom.  This dough has provided hours of entertainment.

 AL and her sweet friend enjoyed it during a play date that afternoon.

 And WR would play with it every single day.

 And random but note worthy.  My kitchen floors were clean and that deserved a picture cause we all know that within hours it never looked like this again.

 Over the last few months I caught wind of a library run story time down at the beach club.  I finally penciled it in and we went. WR loved it.  I was seriously impressed with the quality of the program and enjoyed time with neighbors.

 Getting a kiss goodbye from the seal puppet!  I'm hoping this program will be good prep for preschool.

 It took long enough but I finally got sucked into watching Downton Abbey.  I am hooked.  Love it.  It is my favorite thing to climb into my bed and watch an episode on the lap top during nap time ;)

  The play dough didn't stay two separate colors for long but who cares as long as fun is had.  AL called me to see her 100 duck creation one day.

 This snow hill in the cul de sac has turned into a perfect ice shoot.  The kids pretty much live out here with the neighbors.  They get some pretty good speed as they fly across the road (prayers that no one gets hit by a car)

 I've been trying hard to engage WR with some crafts and fine motor activities.  He loved these.  He patiently placed each straw in a hole but on the second go he beat the system and went for a large handful and surprisingly it worked pretty great lol.

 My little AL is such a sweet and good girl.  One morning after getting them out the door to school I came into see her cereal bowl and her scriptures open to the articles of faith that she has been busy memorizing.  What a good example to me.

 In the midst of the end of February we enjoyed some glorious "fake spring"   amazing how alive 9C can make you feel.

 On a side note, JA got coded for a speech delay again.  He has come leaps and bounds and even though it is coded "severe" I certainly wouldn't categorize it that way.  All I can say is how happy I am he was coded because now he gets funding for speech and OT for the year and that I love especially since funding is hard to come by past kindergarten.

 One night after dinner I taught my kids this party trick that we loved as kids.

 A cute pic of WR and his birthday play dough creations!  Blowing out his candles.

 Earlier this week JA was hit with a bad cough and had to miss school Tues/wed (and PD day thurs/fri).  By Wed afternoon I packed up the boys and drove over to the new rec center/library to grab him a stack of books and movies to get him through his house bound time.  The boys had to stop and take a peek at the new pool.

 Wednesday night was Cubs.  We decided to bang out two badges that are a bit "boring" in my opinion but wouldn't you know it the boys had a great time.  We learned to iron, sew on buttons, read poison symbols and made posters of dangers.  Instead of learning to boil water we decided to spice it up and boil maple syrup and make maple taffy!  While waiting for it to boil a few older boys popped in and convinced some of the cubs to eat dried grasshoppers......gah. 

 Thurs/Fri was teacher's convention so we  loved some lazy mornings to enjoy breakfast.

 We did some grocery shopping complete with treats and a movie as a reward/bribery

 Kind of out of order but Friday night was craft night.  We decided to make these adorable birthday boards (mine isn't quite done).  Anyway, I need to write the month on each of the 12 tags and list the family birthdays on them then tie a string through it and hang them from the knob.  They turned out so cute.  Should be a great way to keep track of all the birthday and way more compact then the one I made for my MIL for Christmas.

 On Thursday the boys and I hit up the story time and they loved cutting a rug to the Rolling Stones during freeze dance.

 On Saturday our church did a social media day with our missionaries.  The goal was the get hundreds of posts out on social media highlighting what missionaries do on a typical day.  I snagged the 7:30am shift (cause life is less busy then) and joined them for their scheduled breakfast time and the start of their scripture study.  Even though I knew they did this every day I was truly impressed.  Saturday morning I was tired and realized these dedicated missionaries never take a single sleep in morning.  They work so hard.  It was fun to visit with them and feel of the sweet spirit that is with them.

It was also fun to pull out some of T's old pics from 1993 and 1994 when he served for 2 years in Las Vegas.  Such a great sacrifice they all give to serve perfect strangers.  I was touched to look through the hundreds of posts that day and see just how much service they give each day (food banks, shelters, snow shovelling, treat and meal deliveries, cleaning, moving, loading etc etc)

A few hrs later the kids had swim lessons so we decided to join them in the pool.  As they finished lessons they joined us for family swim time. 

 Hours after church on Sunday I came across this pic on my phone.  Total mom fail.  I snapped a pic of my outfit to send a friend a pic of the shirt I had found, only to realize I was totally ignoring AL who is reading her little Bible she got at her friends church.  Gotta love the irony of this pic :/

 Yesterday  (March 1st)was T's mom's birthday (64 years old).  We celebrated with a family dinner after church and a delicious cake made by my niece and her husband. 

 

 And one finally victory of a sparkling clean bathroom pic.  My bathroom seems to be the favorite spot to bathe.  I may need to start enlisting the children to help clean it ;)

March came in like a crazy lion today with freezing temps and super strong winds.  Let's hope it goes out like a lamb! I'm ready for some spring time.