February 2017...

Lets just get this over with.  I am so far behind, I think I'm first.  (I am actually writing this the weekend of Easter...in April).

February.  Plenty happened but mostly life just rolled along like usual.  We got our very last bit of Christmas finished...the measuring tree.  

 

 

Wyatt has been participating in Math Olympiad again this year.  Every Monday he usually goes over to his friend, Drew's, house or they come here.  They hang out, do homework, have a snack and go back down to the school for MO.  One day Colter left his Magic Tracks out.  Drew and Wyatt spent the whole afternoon making elaborate tracks.

Lorien's wrestling season is coming to a close.  She has worked so hard and had a lot of good experiences.  Lorien doesn't naturally devote herself to doing hard things.  She (like her mother) would rather take the easy path.  Wrestling has been such a challenge.  She has stuck with the whole season.  We are so proud of her!  Some of her friends came to cheer her on at one of her local tournaments in February.  It was so nice to have a few friends watching and supporting her.

Most of the kids have had a special blanket from the time they were babies.  Lorien and Wyatt out grew their blankets the soonest.  Clare and Adell stuck with theirs for a bit longer but I think Colter has been attached to his for the longest.  As a grown adult who still sleeps with her baby blankets (yes they came with me to college and on my honeymoon) I love this habit.  One night after a date with Will I went up to bed and couldn't find my baby blanket?  I looked all over my room and in my bed.  I couldn't figure out where it would be.  Finally, I thought to check with Colter.  Sure enough, he was wrapped up in his nokie blankie and my baby blankets!  Stinker.

California has been blessed with so much rain!  We are loving every drop.  All of the kids enjoy a good rainy day. Colter especially loves to jump in puddles and whoop it up in the rain.

My sister Jennifer moved from Maine to Utah on February 11th.  All of my Maine family was there to help her pack (as a snowstorm started blowing in) load up the U-haul and head west.  Christopher came out from Utah and drove with Jennifer.  I wish I could have been out there to help.  It was miraculous!

Valentine's Day happened.  Our family tradition is I stay up late and decorate the table with a pretty cloth and a few decorations.  Each kid gets a little gift and a box of chocolates.  They get to wake up to sugared cereal and their little presents.  It is a fun tradition.  Will and I don't put a lot of stock into the holiday for ourselves.  Restaurants are crowded and our anniversary is right around the corner.  We are content to stay in and be grateful for each other.  Although, three of our children were born in November so maybe Valentine's Day is more special because we stay in?

At some point in the regular hub-bub of the day, I stopped to eat lunch: ice cream, cookies, and some Advil.  Valentines at its finest.

Adell missed a bit of school with sickness.  On Adell's last day of sickness she got up and made her own bubble solution and created some gigantic bubbles with a pipe cleaner bubble wand.  

  This winter has been harder for coughs and colds at our house.  I blame preschool.  Colter goes to school Tuesday and by Friday morning he is coughing and has a runny nose.  I remember a friend complaining about the Tuesday cold after a Sunday in nursery.  I feel like I'm living that with preschool.  Colter missed the whole week of preschool over Valentines.  Luckily, his preschool teachers kept his bag of goodies for him to collect when he got back.  He was in heaven, so many lollipops!  As he read through all of the cards (OK, I read the cards and names) he would call out "Oh, she is my friend!" or "He's not very nice but he is good at making trucks." or "His name is actually Mega."  It was fun to peek into his preschool friendships.  I cannot believe this guy will be in Kindergarten in August.  (insert heart break emoji here)

February is talent show season around these parts.  Clare has participated in every talent show except for her Kindergarten year.  She LOVES the talent show.  This year she tried to get a group going but none of her friends were into it.  She decided to go out for MC.  She has great public speaking confidence and we were all sure she'd get a spot.  On try out day we learned there were four kids trying out.  Perfect, there are two shows and there are usually two kids who MC each show.  Clare had to get a spot. Well, for some reason...she did not.  Devastated doesn't even come close to describing how sad she was.  She cried all night.  Clare had tried out by herself and did a decent job.  It was hard to try out alone and she thought she did a good enough job to make the cut...and there were four kids trying out for four spots...no brainer.  I'm still not sure why she didn't make the cut?  Anyway, I picked her up on Friday and she burst into tears.  She did not get a MC spot!  She cried all weekend.  She cried to her siblings, she cried to her friends, she cried to her dad. Clare was sad.  I sent an email to the teacher who heads up the talent show just asking if Clare could have done something better to get a spot.  The teacher responded that Clare did an excellent job, she just didn't make the cut.

Monday I got an email from the same teacher.  Turns out, the MC jobs were given to three kids, a duo who wanted to do the 3rd-5th grade show and a single MC artist who wanted to do the Kindergarten-2nd grade show.  The single MC decided over the weekend, he would rather have a friend up there MCing with him.  Luckily, Clare and Carter were friends!  When Carter asked for a companion, the teachers thought of Clare.  She got called into the teacher's classroom and asked if she would consider MCing with Carter. She couldn't hide her happiness when she said "yes".  She told me later that she was grinning ear to ear as she made her way back to her classroom.  She ran into one of the other teachers who also run the talent show and who had been her 3rd grade teacher (Ms. Blackwell then...Mrs. Cummings now).  Mrs. Cummings asked "How ya doing Clare?" and Clare said "I'm great!" and jumped in the air.  She was over the moon.  I let her tell me the good news when she got home.  I was so happy for her!

She and Carter worked together to get a script together and make plans.  They decided to be Michael Jackson and Cindi Lauper.  They drove in to the show in a Deloren they borrowed from Marty McFly.  It was fun and funny.  The best part, Clare MCed the Kinder-2nd grade show that Adell had a skit in so we only had to go to one show!  Win-win!

Adell also kicked butt on her talent show act.  The theme was "The 80's".  Adell's group did a ribbon dance to True Colors.  We learn something every year when we do the talent show.  Which groups of kids work well together, which acts are easier to do, how the timing goes.  This year was no exception.  It was nice to have Clare MCing Adell's show.  As a 5th grader, this will be the last time Clare participates in the talent show.  It was bittersweet for sure.

I subbed Colter's primary class one Sunday.  I asked Will to come in an be a Prophet from the scriptures (King Benjamin).  The kid's faces as they watched him was so sweet.  They knew he was just a Dad but they were so entertained by his character.  It was cute.  I also learned that I have to remember a snack if I sub this class again.  I forgot...I knew they would be hungry by the third hour of church but I just didn't grab a snack on my way out.  The kids were disappointed but there wasn't much I could do.  At one point, one of the kids said to me "I hear Jesus telling me he wants you to give us a snack."  No guilt...too bad I had to ignore Jesus this time...

And that's a wrap on February.