February 2017 - Tyler the 4-year old

Tyler and I had a lunch date at the Carl's Jr play place and I realized that it is really painful for adults to crawl around in those things. My knees and back were killing me! He requested that we play Hungry Hippos after dinner and I was again reminded how much I love birthdays when kids are so little and easy to please. He was sooo happy to play a silly game and get two presents--a Spiderman mask and some ninja turtle action figures.

He requested a dragon birthday party and the weather was amazing for the first week of February. We were going to have a big obstacle course in our living room, but happily moved it all outside. The kids started out making their own shields out of cardboard cake circles, adhesive jewels, and markers; then we did washable dragon warrior paint; and headed out to the obstacle course. They had to crawl through a cave on their bellies, jump over fire, walk the plank across a river, and roll down a grassy hill, all while fighting fire-breathing dragons and trying to rescue as many sheep as possible. The sheep make more sense if you've seen How to Train Your Dragon.

We used dry ice to make juice into dragon's breath and had enough left over that everything we drank for the next day was an adventure of smoke and bubbles.

The kids got very excited for Valentine's Day and had fun helping me make heart pancakes for breakfast and heart brownies to go with our chinese takeout for dinner.

Our Valentine's at-home date was painting pictures of each other. It was fun :)

The kitchen remodel is done! Kyle built new concrete counter tops last summer, installed a new sink, painted the cabinets white, put in a back splash, recessed lighting, wood blinds, repainted the walls blue, and we got a new Toronto painting.

The kids loved painting and lasted way longer than I thought they would. The rule was that they could only help paint while Tad was napping. Alexa painted everyone's names on the wall and drew hearts everywhere.

The next project is the upstairs bathroom remodel.

Dean got to stay with us for a few days while Todd and Melissa were house hunting in Tennessee. The kids loved having an extra friend to play with.

Tad is my little sidekick in the bathroom when I get ready. He can now reach all of the drawers and I often open one to grab a hair brush or makeup only to find squishy bath animals in the drawer.

It's fun to have some one-on-one time with the kids while Kyle is at bishopric meetings and mutual Wednesday nights. This week we did Play-doh and as you can tell, Tad was a big fan.

Kyle and I got to go on a Thrive executive retreat up to snowy Bear Lake at the end of the month. We flew Marmie out and she chased the kids around for a couple of days while we were gone (thank you again!). We stayed in a beautiful house right on the lake with 6 other couples. The first day we did snow mobiling for a few hours until we lost feeling in our hands and feet. The second day I tried skiing for the first time in my life and Kyle went to a spa for the first time in his life :). I really enjoyed skiing. I was worried about learning something new while we were with a group of life-long pro skiiers, but it wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I figured now was the time to cross it off the bucket list because I’m not getting any younger and I wouldn’t normally get a babysitter all day and pay tons of money for a pass and gear to try something new. I think it was a LOT easier than snowboarding and there was much less falling involved.