February began in the snow that January ended with. Along with that fun we managed some sewing - little zippered pouches still being about the most satisfying project ever. I could whip these out in about 30 minutes once I got in the groove.
There's always some interesting art project going on... this time it was Amy's hand painted white and photographed as a statue...? I'm not quite sure what she was going for here, but it did look cool.
Then we celebrated Quila's birthday. At the time we thought it was her first birthday, but her vet visit later suggested that she's probably more like 3 than 1. Either way, a good time was had by all.
More school and such... Caroline is such an eager student, even though I never really planned any formal "school" for her once we switched to homeschool - just be a kid and all that. But she's so smart that we've done lots of handwriting practice and math stuff, too.
Rollerbladers always....
And one day we went to Petsmart, only to have this guy get very attached to the idea of a Bearded Dragon as a pet. Yeah, cute and all, but no, sorry Buddy.
However, I was feeling generous this particular day, and agreed to two hermit crabs as a consolation prize. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Of course after getting them home in their tidy little habitat I read up on them and discover that actually would rather live in much more deluxe quarters with very specific care requirements. Right. (Four months later, one is still hanging on - the other shed the surly bonds of earth back in April... we've jokingly talked about setting the remaining guy free but, er, that's probably not quite right either). Right.
Then there's this:
Mid-month the kids and I went over to my folks' for about ten days. Don traveled to Oregon in that time for a science conference, so we all enjoyed a little change of scenery. However, a trip to Kohls showed perhaps my kids need some real friends....
Quila came with us again and continued to amaze with her adaptability and how well she gets along with my parents' cat, Spencer (who you may remember was originally ours, way back before we moved to Oregon). Cats are so interesting with their unique personalities. Quila has been consistently terrified of my boys Ollie and Humphrey but is perfectly comfortable with Spencer, and vice-versa. Go figure.
Even though February wasn't a very wintry month, we did get one pretty snowfall while we were away.
Back home after President's Day, we took a morning off school to go get all the kids haircuts, a speedy and successful mission, and followed that up with a lunch out. Lots of fun, and it was nice to realize how these sorts of things are suddenly getting easier after a looooong run of having a child under two on hand. I remember this same liberating feeling once William passed two - that suddenly we could do things again, not being restricted by hungry, sleepy babies or run-crazy-through-the-store toddlers.
Assorted helpers with assorted projects...
Then a big project: overhauling the master closet. Again, I could do a whole blog post of before pictures but since we are summarizing here, let's just go with the fact that it was full of schtuffff and like all the closets in this house, the walls hadn't seen a coat of paint in 25 years.
The weekend that I ended up doing most of the dirty work (like removing the popcorn ceiling) I had a mysterious fever and didn't feel great - and I was SO worried I was coming down with the flu, but thanks to Dr. Google and a trip to urgent care I got a diagnosis of mastitis and quickly felt better on antibiotics. All my years of breast feeding, and only now get mastitis. I frankly was ecstatic that it wasn't something all the kids were going to catch.
Do you like my safety glasses?
The last day of the month found us back at the aquarium, this time with me as chaperone. Honestly, not my favorite place, but we fortunately avoided the crowds and had a really good time. These giant spider crabs were very cool.
And that was February in a big nutshell! I'll continue sorting through the mountains of digital pictures and keep going with March next chance I get. Till then!
