Fabulous February

February was pretty fabulous this year, except one thing (I've written about that below).


Books

For the year of 2016, I have written down 8 books that I would personally like to read.  I finished one in January but I forgot to blog about that. The book was called Boundaries with Kids by Drs. Henry Cloud and John Townsend.

The book is about raising kids to take responsibility for their actions, attitudes, and emotions.  The authors give the ins and outs of establishing the kind of character in your children that will help them have well balanced, productive, and fulfilling lives as they head towards adulthood.

It was a great read and I learned a lot about myself as a parent. Some good, and some not so good. Every parent makes mistakes, and it turns out I am one of them.

This month, I finished another book: 10 Habits of Happy Mothers by Dr. Meg Meeker.

Mom's are expected to raise perfect kids, look good while doing it, have a house that is spotless, be the perfect wife, and some have careers that pay good salaries.  Basically, mothers are expected to do it ALL.  I don't know about you, but that can be intimidating.

Dr. Meeker has 25+ years experience as a practicing pediatrician and counselor.  She wrote this book to help mothers learn how to handle all the things they are challenged with by incorporating 10 habits:

1. Understand your value as a mother
2. Maintain key friendships
3. Value and practice faith
4. Say no to competition
5. Create a healthier relationship with money
6. Make time for solitude
7. Give and get love in healthy ways
8. Find ways to live simply
9. Let go of fear
10. Hope is a decision -- so make it!

Working out and dancing

I go to a Zumba class a few times each week and it is a lot of fun.  I have always enjoyed dancing, and it's a great work out too.

One night our instructor wanted me to wear this Zumba belt/skirt during class.  She thought I would enjoy making some noise while we shook and wiggled our hips.

Well, she was right -- I did enjoy it.  In all honesty, wearing that skirt made me work my core more by shaking and wiggling my hips, which gave me a more thorough workout.

Hannah also enjoys doing a few Zumba workouts.  We pull some videos up on youtube and she goes to town.  Maybe one of these days she'll get to come to class with me.  Now that would be fun!

Hannah has still enjoyed doing some ballet with Daddy.  We stumbled across a Snow White ballet on youtube a few weeks ago and this is now the new favorite.  Every time I see them doing ballet together it just melts my heart.

Bout of cold weather

Generally, the weather has been awesome this month and we have had a warm February all in all.  But there was a period in the month where we got a cold batch of weather.  That, we did not enjoy.

Brr.

Chiropractor

This is the main part of February that we did not enjoy: Torticollis (aka -- stiff neck).

I don't know what I did, but on Valentine's Day (Sunday) I strained a muscle in my neck that caused it to pull a disc out of place.  So I walked around with a cocked neck and could barley move it for a few days.  It was terrible and the pain was at times unbearable.  If I could have received an epidural for the neck I would have gladly taken it.

When Monday morning came I went and saw my chiropractor.  In fact, I saw him 5 times in a 5 day window.  He adjusted my neck and by day five I was back at 95% mobility.  Thank you Tony for giving me my life back!

During that same week of me having a stiff neck, Nathan fell and slipped on some ice (ouch!). It knocked the wind out of him so much that it made him a little disoriented.  So, back to the chiropractor we went.  We are pleased to report that there is no damage done there.  Again, thank you Tony!

Valentine's Day

Despite having cold weather, and me dealing with Torticollis, Valentine's Day was fun this year with Hannah.

She helped make Valentine's for her preschool friends.

Nathan and I exchanged gifts as well.  Nathan found out he was able to donate plasma again (after being deferred for 8 weeks) so he went and did that to help bring in some extra income for us.  It was a thoughtful gift and I appreciate his willingness and sacrifice.

I made Nathan a "paying off student loans" progress chart for his office at work.  He mentioned to me the other day that he would like something to put in his office so he can look at it daily (we have another type of progress chart in our home).

He was very happy and surprised.

We also made some sugar cookies too, and Hannah helped put sprinkles on them.

Nathan did a fun Valentine's Day gift for Hannah.  He checked out from the library a day pass to the Discovery Science Center here in town.  Hannah has been into science and space lately, so this was a perfect gift for her.

Nathan had some fun with it though and made a scavenger hunt for Hannah to find the pass.  She loved it, but was very unhappy when the clues ended.

But she became happy again when we got to the science center.

Hannah had a lot of fun.  Great Valentine's Day gift daddy!  Her favorite thing was to jump on an electronic pad that calculated how high you jumped on the planets:

Painting

We have started painting our house -- by ourselves.  Yes, it is a big project!  We started a few days after Valentine's Day, and thus far we have painted 3 rooms: Hannah's room, the laundry room, and the entry way.  The sister missionaries have helped us out a lot by taping and prepping the rooms, and they have done an excellent job.  We could not have done this without their help.  Here are a few pictures of the rooms.

Hannah's room before:

Hannah's room after (the pictures don't do it justice):

Laundry room before:

Laundry room after:

Entry way before:

Entry way after (it look way better in person):

3 rooms down, and a whole lot more to go.  Next room to be painted: the guest bedroom/office

Miscellaneous stuff

Nathan and Hannah have had some fun together this month in the kitchen.  She really enjoys making pancakes with Daddy.  In fact, she will often tell me that she thinks our pancakes are the best.

When I buy cheese at Sam's Club (cheddar, mozzarella, etc.), I buy it in the solid blocks which means we always need to shred the cheese when we get home.  Well Hannah will often say in the store (quite loudly may I add) "Mommy, when Daddy gets home we can cut the cheese!"  I smirk every time, as do many other shoppers in the store.  It will be a sad day when she understands the meaning of that phrase and stops uttering it.

So, here they are cutting the cheese:

Hannah went to a birthday party for a friend and had the time of her life.  There were slides, things to climb on, video games, a jump house, etc.  We stayed for 2 hours and there was never a dull moment for her.

One evening, while Hannah was getting ready for bed, I noticed she was taking longer than usual.  I went to check on her to see what the hold up was and I found that she did her hair in clips:

One morning, I arrived at my Institute of Religion class early.  Hannah decided to help the teacher set up the chairs in the room.  It took her about 10 minutes to get 4 chairs up, but she did it!  She is always wanting to help out and it's very sweet.

Hannah has really enjoyed having sister missionaries serving in our ward.  She really enjoys the Plan of Salvation lessons that the missionaries do as well.  So they made a "life size" lesson just for her.  We are so lucky to have great missionaries in our area.

That folks, was our fantastic month of February.

10 Habits of Happy Mothers picture courtesy of megmeekermd.com

Boundaries with Kids picture courtesy of boundariesbooks.com

January - a great way to start off OUR year

Hair cut

Hannah got a hair cut this month.  She didn't like me combing or doing her hair in cute ways anymore, so we decided it was time to chop it.

It was long enough for her to donate so we took about 8+ inches off.  At first, I was a little sad about it.  Her hair hasn't been this short since she was about 2 years old.  But it was well worth it because her hair is super easy to comb and do now.



Ballet

One evening, Hannah said she wanted to do some ballet for us.  Not exactly sure where this came from as she is currently not enrolled in any dance classes.  So we put some ballet on the TV and she danced for Nathan and I.

After one of her dances, she asked Daddy to come help and lift her while she danced.  It was very sweet.  I'm glad we have our own Mikhail Baryshnikov in the house.

Hosting an FPU class

You may recall that Nathan and I took FPU in the fall last year.  The class changed our lives so much that we decided to host a class ourselves.  We have 8 households taking our class, and it's been an incredible experience!  We are seeing peoples lives change right in front of us, and that is the best reward there is.

Cutting up credit cards

We taught Hannah the difference between a credit and a debit card, and how you can identify the differences between them.  We talked about what credit cards do and why we have decided not to use them anymore.  It was a great teaching moment for us, and her.  Then we let her cut up a card that we had closed.  Let's just say that she went to town and loved it.

Birthday fun

We celebrated a birthday in our household.  Hannah decided she wanted to decorate for it by putting all of her little animal/play figurines on the piano and chair.

She also made a card for Nathan.  I spelled out the letters for her on a separate sheet of paper, but she did the rest on her card!

She was so excited to give Nathan his card that she put it in her little toy mailbox, and left it by the front door (you can see the mailbox right next to her right foot).

Nathan got a surprise from his family: a ukulele.  Thanks to Danny and Mom and Dad C for giving Nathan such a fun present.  He was pleasantly surprised.

Check up

Nathan and Hannah got their annual check ups this month.  Hannah loves going to the doctor.

She kept telling me the day of her appointment "I'm going to get a shot, but it's alright."  She is such a good sport and can be a tough kid at times.  But when the nurse came in to give her a flu shot, Hannah all of a sudden looked at me with somewhat watery eyes and said "I don't think I like shots." After it was over, she needed a big, reassuring hug and then she was fine.



Weather

January has been very different than last year.  Last year we got about 2 feet of snow in January. This year, we only got about 4-5 inches during the whole month.  Woo woo!  Heck ya!  So happy about that!

And about a week after the snow storm we had a nice warm day of about 60 degrees and it melted the snow right off!

We have green grass in January!  How awesome is that?!  We are really enjoying this warmer winter.

Miscellaneous

One day, Hannah and a neighborhood friend were so engrossed in their playtime that I had to take a look.  I came around the corner and saw almost every single toy pulled out of the toy chest and put in the family room.  They played for HOURS likes this.  Unfortunately, they didn't enjoy the clean up as much as they did the play time.

We received some belated Christmas presents this month which was fun.  Who doesn't like getting presents?  Hannah enjoyed wearing her new dress and hand muff.

One evening, we all played with some Play-doh.  Hannah enjoys rolling the doh out with her little rolling pin.  It's fun for Nathan and I to play with this stuff too as it brings back some childhood memories.

Every winter Hannah's hands get really scaley and dry.  Sometimes it is so bad that we have to wrap her hands at night.  I think she actually enjoys it though.  She likes sitting on the counter and letting Daddy wrap her hands.

It's hard to believe that it's been one year without our little cat.  We've missed him very much at times, and we think of him often.  Hannah will talk about Kronk still.  She says "he's dead, but he lives on in our hearts."  Very true kiddo.  Very true.