February

 

Every year I make a New Year's resolution to get caught up on my photo albums........and every year I just get one more year behind!!  I finally decided to stop looking at blogs (at least those that I don't know personally) and limit other social media, and use that time to work on my photo albums.  Well,  while doing my photo albums, I've realized how valuable this blog has been.  It has been so nice to just look on here and copy and paste the words I wrote.   I don't remember half of what the pictures represent, but luckily it's on here.  So, for those of you who DON'T blog anymore, let me attest to you what a great journal keeping method it is!

My mom sent us a cute Valentines package with books and these chain decorations.  The kids were supposed to put them together, but I ended up doing them all.

 

I procrastinated getting Valentine cards done for the kids, so the night before they were 'due', they made their own.  I scanned the original onto the computer and then printed out a whole bunch. 

Grant taped his to poptarts.

 

Ava taped hers to light sticks (for the boys).

 

Ava's ring erasers for the girls.

 

Noah's for the girls.

 

Noah taped these to s'more crackers (for the boys).

Ava and I went to the Sacramento ballet's production of Peter Pan.

The pool is too tantalizing on warm days, even in February.  They usually end up jumping in but only lasting about 5 seconds.

 

Tried my hand at french bread on bread making day.  Pretty good, but I still need more practice.

Went to a Valentine's day party at our friends house.  Jenny made some cookies for the kids to decorate, but the dads ended up having a very serious cookie decorating contest. 

 

Ava's Valentine's day hairdo.

 

Grant came up with an idea to put the toy fish in the tub and then 'scuba dive' by dunking his head under water to look at the fish. Ha. :)

Daddy and his cute little ducklings.

 

Scouting field trip on a nature walk.

 

Adam and Ava went to her school's Daddy-daughter dance.   She was so excited to go. She is such a social butterfly.

 

I took the boys to dinner and then to a candy store.  Grant picked candy legos.

 

Noah picked candy rocks.

 

Candy lego creation.

 

I found these fairy houses in the bathroom, and thought they were so cute.  This was Noah's.

 

Ava's fairy house.

The insides were decked out with table, chairs, fish tank, etc. :)

 

The fish tank.

 

Grant gets dropped off at school 20 minutes after the other 2, so him and I have some free time in the parking lot together.  We usually play this car bingo game or I make him snuggle with me until the bell rings.  :)  Lately, he's been sticking his head out the sun roof and hollering at his friends and then ducking.

 

February was the Blue and Gold for scouts, so I was pretty busy and a bit stressed about that big production.   We did a western theme, so Noah and I thought a cow pie cake would be very fitting.  Here he is making the mushrooms.

 

He won the award "Don't step in it" award.  The cake is a really yummy chocolate cake I've been making lately.  The 'cow pie' is made with brownies.

 

The flies are my favorite.

 

I made an invite similar to this for my mom, so I thought it would be easy to adjust it for scouts, but I ended up having to start from scratch. Ugh!!  It turned out cute though. 

We had about 150 people attend.  I covered the tables in butcher block paper and had jars of crayons on the tables for people to draw on the tables. 

 I put these agenda prints all over the tables.

 Made these certificates for the cake competition

 

Some western decorations.

 

I got these huge (funny they didn't look so big in the gym though) engineered prints made to hang up.  I thought they would be a great photo back drop, but don't know if anyone actually used them for that.

One of my den leaders made the 'Wanted' posters.  It had a picture of all the scouts and each one said "wanted for being brave, courteous, thrifty, etc...."  Very cute.

 

The crate paper camp fires added a much needed pop of color.

 

Our games were: Snake in a hole (which I made)

 

Rope a pony - had a little hula-hoop that the boys tossed around the rocking horse.

 

Shoot 'em up:  Rubber band shooting (using your hand for the gun)

Also, had a gunny sack pull (no picture for some reason) where a couple kids sat on gunny sacks while holding onto a rope, and a couple other kids pulled the rope, sliding the gunny sacks across the floor.  

For dinner we served sloppy joes, chips, beans and veggies.  I made homemade root beer for the drink, and we ate the cakes that the boys brought.  I was able to get those Costa Vida/Cafe Rio left over aluminum dishes to serve the dinner in.  Looked very western.

 The boys had fun so I consider it a success.  Glad it's over though! 

Noah spend most of it in another room crying.  :/

 

Noah being sweet and reading a book to the babies.  Then they all colored a 'mural' that we have had hung in the entryway for a couple months.  Have to document the sweet moments, because we all know they don't always get along.

 

Using the left over dry ice from pack meeting to make our own root beer.

 

Scary Ava, scary!!  Horton the vampire?   And yes, I let her go to school dressed like that.  Unless she is entirely in one color, I usually don't make her change.  It's not worth the fight in the mornings, and to be honest, I think it's hilarious what she wears to school. 

 

My little explorer climbing a tree in the creek.  February was a busy month.....who am I kidding, every month is busy and seems to fly by!  At the first of February we also had an adults only Elders Quorum party.  We served dinner here, played a little game and chatted it up for a few hours.  Little did we know, that would be Adam's last EQ party as president.  He got released and called as ward mission leader last month.