March Madness

March was a fun month at our house. The snow finally started melting, which meant we could actually escape our house on occasion. 

 Sarah loves her animals. She put the baby bird up on the windowsill to look outside, so obviously the mama bird had to be there to take care of her baby.

 Chris is our cuddler. Grandma is always good for a cuddle.

 Annie and Sarah made Grandma a fancy cake for her birthday.

 Chris does not like to sleep right now, particularly if we are at Grandma's house. This was such a magical moment that I had to capture it.

 We spent a day at Grandma's house and made our first park trip of the season. Sarah got to swing and eat a nutella sandwich at the same time. Can life get better than that?

 Chris tried out the swings for the first time. It's a serious moment in a boy's life.

 Chris tried his first bite of solid food at Grandma's house. Yummy avocado!

 We started our garden in March (separate post to come on that!). Chris and I had fun watching Daddy with the rototiller.

 Chris loves bath time!

 Kelson ran a 10K in Adrian. The kids and I cheered from the sidelines. 

 Sarah gave Daddy an unprompted back scratch while he was stretching.

 3rd place! That trophy is massive and heavy. It gets to live on Kelson's desk at work.

 One of the spaces that has been needing some work since we moved in is my sewing space in the bonus room over our garage.

 Kelson and I built a 2-part desk, a huge window seat, and a bookcase that fit perfectly in the space. I love my new sewing room! The only hiccup was when we moved the bookcase in and realized we had accidentally built it 5 inches too tall. It wouldn't fit under the low ceiling, so we had to cut it down. Apparently there is something to that whole measure twice, cut once thing.

 Sarah's curls are awesome, but they were getting out of control. It was time for her first trim. She was pretty nervous at first, but she eventually warmed up to it and had a great time.

 Beautiful girl!

We got to stop at Arctic Circle for lunch because she was so brave for the hairdresser. I just love my little Shirley Temple!

Chris: 6 Months

Update time: Chris celebrated his half birthday!

Chris at 6 Months:

• 27 inches tall (65th percentile) and 16 pounds 11 ounces (38th percentile). He has always tended to be just a little taller and a little skinnier than average with slightly larger than average head.  Sarah outweighed him by 3 pounds at this age. 
• Spent another month never sleeping and then finally gave in and decided to sleep the day before his 6 month birthday. He went from never napping and waking up 10 times every night to suddenly taking 3 good naps and waking up once or twice. Please don't let this be a fluke. 
• If he is on the floor, he automatically rolls to his tummy. It is easier to find things to play with and stick in his mouth that way. He also sleeps on his tummy. However, he still can't roll back the other way, so he eventually screams for help to roll over.
• Tried his first solid food: avocados. He is very jealous of anyone who eats around him and tries to steal food. 
• He has mastered hair pulling. Sarah is a perfect target with all those curls.
• His pacifier has been mostly abandoned.
• Drools everywhere.
• Such a happy, smiley boy! 

February: The Cutest Cow, Valentines, One sick baby, and Sidewalks!

Sometimes your daughter is dressed as a cow when it is time to go to Wal Mart. Why make her change? It's not like we were going somewhere fancy, like Target. 

Valentines! Our challenge was to buy something for each other that we haven't given as a gift before. Kelson still bought me my favorite chocolate, but he gave me a box of seeds instead of fresh flowers. I will plant them in the garden when it reappears from under the snow.

I haven't made a paper craft in a long time, so I had some fun packaging Kelson's gift. The note said that it was "a little sweet, a little spicy, and very cheesy, just like you"

The box contained chili pepper Ghirardelli chocolate, which was actually pretty good.

To show Kelson my love for him, I gave him a block of processed cheese. He loves it, and it pretty much makes me gag, so I never buy it. He ended up taking it to the church and making nachos for the scouts.

 Chris got a Valentine balloon, which Sarah excitedly gave to him.

 Sarah got a card with chocolate and a balloon too. Few things are more exciting than a new balloon and chocolate when you are three.

Just after Valentine's Day, Chris came down with a really bad respiratory virus. The poor kid was miserable for at least a week. For several days I could hardly get him to eat. We finally took him into the ER on a Saturday night to get him checked out for an ear infection. Neither of us slept for days. It was terrible. We are glad everyone is feeling better now.

Sarah never naps unless she happens to fall asleep in the car or the stroller. However, she grabbed a blanket and pillow and went right to sleep while our home teachers were visiting one Sunday. Apparently the conversation wasn't too exciting.

Halfway through February, the sidewalks finally reappeared! For the first time in months we could go for a walk! It was amazing. 

I recently started serving as the cubmaster for our church cub scout pack. My first den meeting was the Blue and Gold banquet. I felt like I was getting tossed in at the deep end, but it went pretty well, even trying to conduct the meeting with a sick, cranky Chris strapped to my front. 

I finally decided that I couldn't handle the sea of oatmeal in my house any more and convinced Kelson to help me paint our bedroom yellow with a white ceiling. It looks so much happier! Our house is finally coming together. I will post a full tour one of these days.

Sarah had a routine eye check-up at the end of the month and was super brave. Her eye is doing better than we could have hoped, which is great news. She even sat still for the glaucoma test. Great job, Sarah! We celebrated with ice cream.

Snowpocalypse 2017

We have spent the last 5 years living in places where winter wasn't much of an issue. We didn't have it at all in San Diego or Hawaii, and our winter in Virginia was pretty short. In fact, it was 90 degrees on Christmas there. When we moved home to the Northwest, we knew that winter would become a reality once again. The first snow fell at the beginning of December while we were on vacation, and we came home to several lovely inches of Christmas snow. Being from this area, I knew that snow would accumulate for a while, then it would melt, then more would fall. It would come and go. I was wrong. The snow kept coming and coming. It was the most snow that this area has received in at least 20 years.

This was at the beginning of the winter when Sarah could still play in the back yard. By January, we had 3 feet of snow that stuck around for 2 months. Sarah couldn't go out in the yard, or she might have disappeared. 

So much shoveling to do!

 The snow that started as charming became dangerous. Roofs in this area were not built to hold 3 feet of snow. Snow removal became the biggest business around. One Sunday, church was cancelled because of yet another snow storm and Kelson, along with a number of other men from the ward, spent the whole day shoveling people's roofs. Roofs started leaking and collapsing all around the area. The damage was devastating. We were fortunate not to have any damage at our house. 

 Sarah loved the snow. One day, Kelson dug her a "bed" and tucked her in with a "blanket". She thought it was awesome. 

 The plow working on the construction site next door plowed our driveway for us, and we ended up with huge drifts. Sarah could go sledding without ever leaving our front yard.

We weren't sure the snow would ever melt, and we were all terrified of the flood that happen when it did. Fortunately, the snow did finally melt, and we didn't have any flooding problems at our house. The farmer's almanac predicts that we will have 3 more winters like this one. I hope it is wrong.

Chris: 5 Months

Time for another monthly update on our little man. Here is Chris at 5 months:

This month:

• Weighs in around 16 pounds
•  Loves to smile, giggle, and kick his feet (thus why all of the smiley pictures are out of focus)
• Plays in the jumperoo and can finally reach the floor
• Has taken a greater interest in playing with toys
• Doesn't sleep. Ever. Mommy is tired.
• Mastered rolling from back to front. He has rolled the other way once or twice, but he mostly gets stuck on his tummy and then gets mad.
• Squirms around so much that he never stays where I leave him on the floor.
• Puts everything in his mouth.
• LOVES bath time. No matter how grumpy he is, he starts giggling as soon as we turn the water on and then kicks and splashes like a crazy boy.
• Had his first trip to the emergency room (for a nasty respiratory infection).
• When all else fails, he calms down by watching cartoons with Mom. 
• Charms everyone with his beautiful, blue eyes.