Sunday, February 9, 2014

Funny February

I like February. You blink and you're already halfway through the month, and each day creeps closer and closer to spring! We've been having fun so far this February. Here's a glimpse of what we've been up to:
 Miss Lucy reached 100 days at school and is officially 100 days smarter for it. Their count was kind of messed up considering the 4-day-snow-day back in January, thus it came four days later than planned, but she still got to wear the shirt she'd made with 100 pipe cleaners hot glued on. I like Leah's photo-bomb in the background.:) 
 Lucy also has lost two teeth this month, one week apart from each other exactly. She looks like a little jack o' lantern. 
Unfortunately she somehow lost the second tooth in all of the excitement, so when it came time to hide the tooth under her pillow for the Tooth Fairy she was really upset. We told her to write a note explaining what had happened, and when Jon found it, it totally cracked me up! It says (sorry about the sideways picture): "Dear tooth fairy, I lost my tooth. I mean I really lost my tooth. Can you still leave something? I will be more careful next time. Lucy, your friend." 
 Bet you didn't know February 6th was National Frozen Yogurt Day?? Neither did we, until I got an offer on Facebook for some free yogurt at Di'lishi. Once I'd picked up Lucy from school, Zach and his huge sweet tooth satisfied a frozen yogurt craving in honor of such a wonderful "holiday."
We've been working with Zach on his temper and occasional grumpiness by doing "Grump Marks" (Mom? Whitney? Anyone else remember those?). Every time he whines or grumps he gets a tally mark on his chart, and if he's able to get less than 20 in 2 weeks (we're halfway right now), he earns a Star Wars Lego set. So far, he's done impressively well. All we have to do is remind him and he shapes right up. I love bribery! He reeeeally wants that set. 
 This is the lovely sight that greets us each morning-- bed-head to beat the homeless. Leah takes a bath every night, so I guess between the wet hair and tossing and turning, she creates a major rat's nest.
 Here's a frontal view. Good Morning sunshine!
 This little stinker is a total mess maker! Holy smokes! I remember it with Zach too-- it's like all of a sudden right around 15 months they go from 0 to 60, and she's running and climbing and destroying everything that gets in her path. I can't keep up. You can't really tell, but behind her is about a million little rocks from our fireplace that she looooves to pull out and dump all over the floor. They're the worst to clean up too, because they won't vacuum up. This came after she'd already pulled all of the ziploc bags out of the box, and dumped my box of cotton swabs in the toilet. She's always very proud of herself, too.
 The only time she slows down is if she wants to read a book, which thankfully is often. She loves books! She finds one, brings it over to Jon, Lucy, or I, and then backs into our laps and sits down with her hands folded in her lap. She's a funny little thing with her own personality.
 This afternoon we went out for a walk and she creamed her face on the pavement yet again-- in the exact same place on her nose as last time. Not a good picture to see because of the flash, but already her cheek and eye are red and swollen and I'm thinking she'll definitely have a shiner by tomorrow morning.
 My sister in law Sarah took these amazing 12 month portraits while we were there visiting over Christmas. She was NOT cooperating, but Sarah managed to pull out some treasures! 
 Crazy about this one. So sweet!
We sure love our Leah! Even if she is really, really, a handful.
 Look! Look! Do you notice anything different about this guy?!? NO GLASSES!!! He has special eyes now. At the end of January, he underwent PRK surgery to permanently correct his eyes so he no longer needs eye glasses or contacts to see. How very lucky!! His surgery went off without a hitch, his recovery was wonderful (no pain and very little irritation) and he's already seeing better than 20/20 just two weeks later. We are sooo grateful everything went so smoothly and now he can get back to fixing teeth.
 Aaaaand unfortunately I still have my glasses, but this February I've been up to a few new things too. Our gym added another Body Pump class for me to teach on Mondays at 12:15 p.m., so now I'm up to teaching twice a week (Mondays and Fridays), one Saturday a month, and still subbing occasionally. Woot! Woot! Compared to the once a month I was teaching as the "newbie" last year at this time, I'm thrilled.
Finally, in honor of the Olympics in Sochi we went to Mellow Mushroom for pizza before the Opening Ceremony. I've mentioned Mellow Mushrrom before but I gotta document it since time is dwindling and I want to remember the little things like this when we move. It's definitely one of our favorites here and it's one of the few "local" places unique to the South that we really like. It's kind of a hippy-dippy place featuring all organic ingredients and super yummy whole wheat crust. Our favorites are the Caesar (pesto chicken pizza with Caesar salad on top) and the Thai Dai (curry chicken pizza with veggies and Thai chili sauce).
 We've been enjoying the Olympics so far. I hate that we have to wait until 8 p.m. to start watching, because then it  goes on and on until midnight which is much too late for me, but we absolutely love celebrating all the amazing athletes around the world. So fun to see all these countries and cultures come together for something positive for a change! While watching the Opening Ceremonies, Jon and I couldn't help but comment that without their country's name on the clothing, most of the time you couldn't tell where anyone was from. Isn't it amazing that people are just people no matter where they're from? Here's hoping the second half of February is just as good as the first!