February Part 1

With relief, we leave January behind and move happily into February.  Sunday was a happy day all around.  We started out happy and stayed happy all day.  We spent Saturday getting the house cleaned up and when we came home from church, the kids opted for reading together instead of getting out toys.  Sweet! We had friends over to watch the abysmal Super Bowl, and while the game was terrible, the company and the food was great.  As a family we had been working on achieving several goals (including daily exercise, eating more vegetables, reading, showering, family prayer and scripture study).  We checked off our last box Sunday morning and earned JustDance 2014, which the kids were VERY excited about.  Jens played the for the duration of the Super Bowl, often with friends, but occasionally on his own.  He loved it.  

Good morning.  Someone is very pleased about learning to stand up in bed.

Such gorgeous kids, all ready for church.

 So happy after a good nap with Mom!

February is a month of love, starting of with Mike's birthday--always something to celebrate.  We had breakfast and presents first thing in the morning.  In spite of turning 37 (or because of it?) he received a game from the kids and a toy truck from me.  A big, RC toy truck, I should clarify.  I also got him his own throw blanket because all of our other ones are small and dragged around by the kids.  They are not allowed to touch Dad's blanket unless they are sitting by him on the couch.  I had a serious cake fail (I hate my broken oven.  It makes baking a miserable experience.) But I tried again and got a passable cake the second time around.  

Cora found some bread on the counter--she can reach surprising distances from that booster seat--and tried it out.  She liked it.

 Cora continues to be a delightful little person.  She crawls, stands, waves, claps, babbles, coos, drools, eats, and smiles with a enviable joie de vivre.

Look Mom, I am short enough to stand under the table.

Get in there, rice puffs.

 Playing with Mom and Sylvie.

 Sylvie and I built a pretty great tower out of blocks.  Sylvie insisted that we save it for several days--she didn't want to knock it down.

 Cora has two little teeth.  They have been through for a while, but you can actually see them in this picture.

 We had our yearly Valentine's Party.  Sylvie invited friends to come and craft away.  The girls decorated cookies (impressive amounts of sprinkles and frosting were used) and made Valentines.  Then they played and danced together.  I loved hearing them all belting out the songs from Frozen.

If this picture looks familiar, it might be because it reminds you of this one, taken 8 years ago.  Even the furniture is the same.

Cora is trying more and more foods.  She hasn't met one she doesn't like, unless it is too warm.  She shoves things into her mouth in a very urgent way which I find endearing and humorous. 

She is still a novelty to brother and sister, shockingly enough.  They can't seem to keep their hands off of her and love making her laugh and smile.  We have hit the delightful phase where every little thing found on the floor must be sampled, from bark to lint to paper to silicon cupcake liners. 

 Mike's favorite thing about Cora: church duty.

We had a very happy Valentine's Day.  Lots of love in this house, that's for sure.  We went out for dinner, but came home for cards and treats (and Olympics!).  

January

January was a real stinker of a month.  The two main highlights for me were starting it in Utah with our family and friends, and when it ended.  Our children might disagree, as they had a pretty fun month, but Mike and I both got the flu (the real flu).  We were grateful that the kids had gotten flu shots in December--they actually seem to have worked, since none of them got sick the way Mike and I did.  We seemed to move straight from the flu to colds.  Mike keeps joking that we have mono, but seriously, we are both so tired.  It was hard to come back from a big trip and try to clean up Christmas and start back into school and also be so sick all at the same time!

The rest of our Utah trip was really fun.  We spent time with friends and family, played games, ate food, went shopping (a lot of new shoes on this trip!) several trips to Conies (three in the space of two days), and Mike and I even managed to go on a date and see a movie.  We always love seeing everyone, and we look forward to our next trip.  The kids were amazingly good in the car, both going there and coming home.  Cora in particular wins special accolades for amazing baby behavior--she didn't cry once in all the 22 hours in the car.  

 We got home to our house, still fully decked out for Christmas.  I had already decided we would leave the Christmas decorations up for another week while we unpacked, got back into school, and while Michelle and I got the FAME program ready for the second semester; however, our tree had other ideas.  Sometime in the middle of the night, it tipped over.  None of us heard it, but it was down on Monday morning in a dramatic way.  Amazingly we only had one broken ornament--Jens's 2013 star, which I was able to replace.  But it did mean that we had to put a lot of things away.  Also on Monday, Sylvie started her ballanay class with Ms. Kaylene.  She was very excited to started dancing again and was ready for class about 4 hours early.

Sylvie's cute elf, cheerful and colorful!

Cora has been thinking about crawling lately, but hasn't committed to anything.  She sits up easily and can maneuver and turn to reach things, but hasn't put together the hands and knees thing yet, even though Sylvie and Jens have been trying to show her.

Sylvie and I took Cora for her first Picture People photo shoot, very spur of the moment--only a month late.  Mike was home sick (little did we know how long it would last and that I was next!), so the girls and I just went.  I am glad we did, or Cora still wouldn't have pictures.  Cora was very cooperative and not at all shy, unlike when Sylvie was that age.  She smiled and sat happily.  Sylvie was an enthusiastic and sometimes very loud helper, and she loved the winter props. 

Sylvie loves it when she and Cora wear matching clothes.  She also loves it when she wears her big sister shirt and Cora wears her little sister shirt.  Sylvie has a bandaid on her forehead because "Ruth kicked her with her bare foot!" It was one of those "I can't see it, but I know what you're going through" kind of invisible injuries.  Lately Sylvie has been very excited about doing her own hair (sometimes it hurts to let her leave the house) and Cora has been excited about brushing her non-existent-but-trying-to-appear teeth. 

January 16: Cora is starting to move around a little more.  She has gotten a few crawly arms and seems to want to stand up by herself!

Jens and I spent a week working on this puzzle together.  It was really fun, and Jens is a good puzzler.  He won this puzzle at the New Year's Eve bingo game.

Mike got to feeling better just in time to take Jens to the Monster Truck Show, which he won tickets to at work.  He didn't even invite me!  He just assumed I wouldn't want to go and that Jens would like it more!  He was right.  They stayed out late and had a great time, stopping at Gunther's afterwords for some ice cream. 

Sylvie made everyone opera glasses.  Even Cora had some.  They are held on to your face with tape--no pesky ear pieces to bug you. 

Sylvie's school field trip in January was to the Roller Rink.  She loved it.  She tried both the real skates (a serious arm and shoulder workout for me since I had to hold her up AND drag her around the rink, while carrying Cora in the front pack) and the plastic skates that go on over your shoes (much slower, but she could do them alone and LOVED skating to the music, snapping her fingers).  She felt so big and loved every minute.

Rosy cheeks after nap time.

January 23rd: This is the face of a girl who can crawl, stand up, and who has two teeth! Cora had a momentous week where suddenly things came together.  She is a busy bee!

And that's it.  We survived January.