Sickies

 

It has been the worst winter ever for sickness! It has been one solid cold and runny nose for just about everybody, but especially Annie. The poor baby has always been so healthy and was actually my baby that went the longest without getting sick. She was 9 months old before she got a cold. And she didn't get too many last year.

But this year has been a totally different story! From the beginning of November until now Annie has had a runny nose all but maybe two weeks. It has been so sad! She and Russ have also had many a fever and cough not to mention ear infections for both. I feel like I am at my wits end. I know that there are a lot of people that have much sicker kids than me, and we have always been so heathy, but not this year. It also doesn't help to think we are going to be having a newborn here in a couple of weeks. Yikes! I am praying that we can get over it all by then. For my sanitys sake!

 

Presidents Day

It is so much fun to have holidays that both Kevy and the kids have off. I try and always plan something fun to do on those days. We had gone to this huge park a little over a year ago with the kids and had a blast so I figured it would be fun to go again. I packed picnic and we ate there. When we got there to eat Russ was being a total wack job and didn't want to eat with us, he just wanted to go and play on the toys. Such a little stinker! He really thinks he can get away with whatever he wants, and we are really having to make a conscious effort with him being the only boy at not spoiling him too much and giving in to him.

Nellie is always so sweet and plays so well with Russ. He was wanting to play with sticks and she just went along with it.

I may be biased but these sure are the cutest kids I ever saw!!

It's crazy to think we are adding another little monkey to this group!

One of the main reasons we came to this park was to feed the ducks, but the geese that were there and the seagulls just overtook the whole thing and we couldn't even feed the ducks. In fact there was one goose that was really scaring me and was chasing me down, so I ended up just pretty much chucking the rest of the bread and running away, becuase I was genuinely scared!

The kids did get to look at the ducks and had fun watching them, after the bread was out of the picture.

 

 

Kevy did a weight loss competition at work and he won it! He ended up losing over twenty pounds! I was so proud of him and his hard work. When I took this picture of him and Annie that day I realized how different he looked!

 

I sure love this guy so much and I am so glad I have him beside me for all of life's craziness!

 

Valentine's Day!!

I know that Valentine's Day isn't necessarily the most exciting holiday, but I actually really love it! Some of my favorite family traditions are on Valentine's Day. It was also so nice this year that it was on a Saturday so we could spread the two traditions out over two days. It made it much less stressful on me! On Friday night I made my annual Valentine's dinner for all my loves! I always make the same thing, homemade pizza and our special Valentine's jello but it was really fun again as usual. I even got out the goblets for the sparkling cider and the kids thought that was really neat!

Our other tradition of making and decorating cookies for our friends was a success again. The kids just love to make theirs so special for their friends

 

We let monkey girl decorate one as well, but with all the licking etc. we thought it might be better if she just ate it herself.

Lizzy took hers to her two church friends. I am really grateful that she has some really good church friends.

Russy took his to ColeMason, our neighbors that are so nice to us and give Russ so many cool clothes and toys.

Jane took hers to her little boyfriend Maxim and to some other girls from the ward. It is a little hard that she doesn't have any girls her age at church but there are some older and younger.

Nellie made hers for her church friends as well. It is so nice to have such a good community of people at church! We love our valentines traditions and can't wait to do it again next year!

 

The Police Station

It sure is fun that daddy works at the Police Station. The kids, especially Russy think it is pretty cool. We were able to go one day to a barbequethey were having for police and their families. They had out some of the "vehicles" as Russ calls them. Kevin taught him one day to call them that and he has been doing it ever since, it is too funny. Here the kids got to sit in the hummer that is used for SWAT.

The kids all had fun sitting on the police motorcycle.

 

 

Russy was a chicken and wouldn't do it at first until he saw his sisters do it and then he was all over it.

I think he liked sitting in the "police truck" as he calls it the best. Annie decided she needed to join him in it as well.

 

Janie's Stuffed Animal Party

it was a year for Jane to get a friend party and she was really excited about it. She first wanted to do a frozen party but since she was inviting some boys and since she did a frozen cake last year I steered her in a different direction. She loves stuffed animals and since most kids, boys and girls do too, we decided to do a stuffed animal party where they could bring their favorite one.

I also learned my lesson from doing Lizzy's party that we wanted to keep it short. So we made it an hour and a half, and it ended up being the perfect amount of time. In fact this party went so smoothly it made me hate birthday parties a little bit less!!

The one thing that was a little bit difficult was that Jane saw these penguin cupcakes that she really wanted me to make for her party, but they ended up being really time consuming to make. I first had to dip marshmallows in chocolate for the bodies and try and stick on the tummies while they were drying and I kept accidentally making them touch so chocolate got everywhere and and then I couldn't find candy corn for the feet so I had to try and form feet out of starbursts which was ridiculous. Anyway Jane thought they were cute so it made it worth it.

We had a really cute owl piñata for the party, which Janie just loved because she is in the owl class at school and has just fallen in love with owls.

It was super exciting for Jane to open all her presents and get so many new toys and things.