February 28

 

 Kat and Elliott had their last basketball games this morning. We sure have enjoyed watching their games.

February 27

After Elliott got home from preschool yesterday, Kat taught him how to play Monopoly. He played for an hour, which I think is pretty good for a 5 year-old.

We got our first foster placement yesterday, he is four years old. He needs a lot of prayer. His parents need ALOT of prayer. And we could use prayer too. I don't see much school getting done today. He needs to be watched closely, especially with Elliott and Lucy. He is a bit rough with them, although he seems to really enjoy playing with them. He hasn't ever really interacted with other kids. There will be a lot of adjusting here while we get used to each other. 

February 26

My awesome friend Tracy made Lucy this cute headband. Lucy prefers to wear it Rambo-style instead. Silly goose!

Lucy and her Puggle friends love their teachers Mr. Bobby and his wife Tanya.

February 25

Kat had an art class yesterday afternoon. She learned about an artist named Jose Pasada and then did printmaking.

Lucy woke up with a low-grade fever, but it was gone by bedtime last night. Yay!

February 24

 Lucy had a fever of 101 degrees yesterday afternoon... poor kiddo felt lousy.

  

Elliott read his first book! We did a Hooked on Phonics lesson yesterday morning. A few hours later he asked to do more. We completed 3 lessons for the day (words that end in _an, _at, and _ap), so he was able to read this book (Example sentences: Cat can tap a pan. Cat can nap.). He was quite proud of himself.

February 23

I got out of the house for a few hours by myself yesterday. This Mama needed that. I drove across town to pick up a new (to us) school table and chairs for next year when we add Elliott to the mix for Kindergarten. While I was out, I got a few groceries.

Lucy woke up at 3am with a fever of 100.3, which means no co-op for us today.

 

February 22

Yesterday we woke up to a wintry mix on top of the snow we already had. With icy roads, Clay couldn't get our van up our street to help friends from church move. He spent over an hour shoveling our street. Once he finally got out of the neighborhood, he went directly to a tire store and bought new tires for our van. Turns out the old tires were bald, which doesn'twork so well on icy/snowy roads. That is about the only excitement we had all day. Literally... all day. I was feeling a little cooped up by nighttime. We did get out to go to church today.

 Julia spent awhile making blanket forts yesterday. Gus appreciated it.

Clay, Elliott, and Kat played Monopoly.

February 21

Yesterday was a fun day. Jonathan came over again and a new friend named Evie came over to play. In the afternoon, Shannon, Jadon, Bethany, Leanna, Sarah Cate, and Amelia came over to go sledding. And the girls managed to get all the schoolwork done in the morning so they could enjoy the day with their friends.

Evie is about the cutest four year-old ever. She needs her own TV Show. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Yep, we're building immune systems here. Lucy is eating days-old snow using a bubble wand and a dirty bowl she found in the garage cabinet. Gag! 

Poor Clay has had to work alot of overtime this week. He hadn't seen the kids in 2 1/2 days (and he was out of town all last week), so last night we stayed in and had a quiet evening at home.

February 20

As I am posting this (7:30am), it is -8 degrees outside, with a windchill of -20 degrees. Brrrr! The temp is supposed to warm up to 26 degrees this afternoon.

 Jonathan spent the day with us since his school was cancelled yesterday. We had pizza and rented the movie "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day." It's a cute movie.

 This has been Lucy's go-to dress-up outfit this week. She is a Princess Pirate. Arrgh!

February 19

28 days until Spring - not that I am counting. Actually, Spring seems very far off with our record-breaking -7 degree temps this morning (windchill of -25). Good golly molly!!!

We got out of the house for a little bit yesterday to go trade in the rental car for Clay's newly improved (from the car accident) car. While we were out and about, we stopped in for a visit with Papaw G.

 Papaw had some crazy deadly icicles hanging from his porch!

The girls and I had a movie night last night. Elliott had to go to bed early for bad behavior and poor Clay had to work until around midnight, so it was just a girls' night.

February 18

Today is the third day public schools have had a snow day. Not us! This snow is a good motivator for the girls to get their schoolwork done ASAP so they can go out and play!

 

 

 Kat wasn't happy because Elliott got her with a snowball.

 Watch out, Elliott!

 You were warned.

Meanwhile, Julia was busy building a snow fort.

February 17

Julia, Kat, Elliott, and I went back out in the snow after dinner last night. I put rock salt on the driveway and then got the brilliant idea to run to the store to get Clay some Excedrin. Poor guy had a migraine last night and we were out of the one medicine that works. I learned to drive in IL. I can handle a little snow. I got down our driveway, up our street, and to the edge of the neighborhood before I got stuck. I tried multiple times, but the snow piles are too tall and we don't have 4 wheel drive. So, poor Clay went to bed with a headache. On a positive note, Elliott's fever was gone by bedtime. 

 

 The kids enjoyed a little snow cream after dinner.

We finished the evening watching home videos and playing board games. 

And today is Tuesday... my crazy day. Not today! Piano lessons? Cancelled. Preschool? Snow day. Gymnastics? Cancelled. Basketball practice? Cancelled.

February 16

 While Julia and Kat were doing schoolwork this morning, I brought some snow in for the little ones to play in. Elliott woke up with a 99.5 temp. That's a degree lower than it was yesterday morning, so we are moving in the right direction.

However, when you usually only get 1 or 2 good snows to play in in a winter, the kids are itching to play in it. After lunch they played outside for about 30 minutes (about the same amount of time it took to get everyone in all their snow gear). At 1pm we had about 7 inches of snow. It's not supposed to stop until tonight. With the windchill, it only felt like 2 degrees. It was so cold that poor Gus had to come inside because he had little balls of snow/ice sticking to the fur on the bottom of his paws and had trouble walking.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 My biggest kid was having fun jumping in a large pile of snow that came from the deck/trampoline.

 

The aftermath... I enjoy a good snow, but I am thankful I only have to deal with it once in a awhile.