i don't usually do much for holidays (other than christmas), and i certainly don't do much crafting in my life, but somehow these crayon shaving/wax paper hearts have become a tradition for us around valentine's day. we do them for our kids' classroom valentines, sending a bunch to friends and family, and our own decorations, so it is quite the production.
the weather was pretty wonderful all month and we spent lots of time at parks:
randy is a fun dad and came up with this activity for jonathan, which kept him occupied for hours during february. he would come up to me with his block and a handful of nails and ask me to get the nails started. then, he would go to town hammering them all down. he got quite good at it.
my girls had a week off of school in february and i decided to head down to portland for a couple days with the kids to see my cousin, lucy, and her family. we also have a cousin, marilyn, who is serving a mission at the portland temple visitor's center, so while we were there, we went and visited her. it was so fun to see her.
after visiting marilyn, we walked around the temple grounds a little.
just a little, though, thanks to jonathan and his antics. i am amazed he didn't end up in a fountain at any point.
the next day, lucy and i took all the kids and rode the portland MAX downtown. we must have looked like quite the sight - two moms and six young kids riding public transportation - but the kids behaved really well and we had a great time.
most of the time the kids just stared out the window.
we got off at pioneer square and walked to a big collection of food carts for lunch. the kids loved that they each got to pick what kid of food they wanted. jonathan went for grilled cheese, diane had chinese noodles, and madeleine had some sushi. i shared a little bit with each of them.
we went back to pioneer square and ate our food together before headed back home on the train. it was the perfect little excursion for our group.
usually, i don't get any pictures of lucy and me together when we visit because we're too busy talking to take pictures, so it's nice that we actually have some proof of our visit. but mostly, we still just did a lot of talking.
this is a couple weeks after the hammering began, when we bought some safety goggles for him to wear while doing it.
in february, we found out the gender of our pending arrival. we are having another girl! we are very excited, although jonathan is a little disappointed not to have a little brother.
my ultrasound was in the morning, so when we picked up diane from school at noon, i promised madeleine i would walk by her classroom with the appropriate colored balloon so that she wouldn't have to wait until the end of the day for the gender reveal.
madeleine got invited to a fancy spa birthday party, where they went and had manicures and got their hair done up fancy. she was kind of in heaven:
i was making dinner one night and looked out the window at my three kids playing with each other nicely and thought, "this is what makes the six years of near-constant fatigue all worth it." it may have been an intense period of sleep deprivation and lots of physical neediness, but i love that my kids are close and that they will (hopefully) always be good friends with their siblings.
and these are some random pictures of an uncooperative jonathan:
No comments:
Post a Comment