Every once in a while (but not as often as I had envisioned) the stars align and I have a 6 hour break in the week from shuttling anyone anywhere where it's just me and Mr. John! If the stars align further I get a few hours while he naps to take care of projects that require an attention span. Today is not exactly that day as he's chilling on my lap right now "helping" by drooling on my keyboard and poking at buttons, but it's close so I thought I'd check in with a more complete blog update!
Anyway, back to February! For Catherine's second week of preschool at our house we explored spontanaeity and curiosity and made some Oobleck!
It was also the week before Valentine's day! A friend hosts a fantastic kids party so we made heart shaped pizza! Catherine enjoyed helping!
And taking pictures with her brother once we got there!
Delivering Valentines!
The kids were excited to compare treats when they got home!
And I had fun comparing them to a year ago!
Fueled with heart-shaped sugar, we headed outside to enjoy the unseasonably warm weather and our smiley baby!
We "celebrated" Valentine's Day by putting heart sprinkles on everything for the weekend and with John's second symphony! He slept through most of it and then found his hands to suck on.
The kids weren't too excited to try instruments but we got them to try a few:
Meanwhile John did some reading when we got home!
I decided to chop my hair off and go wild with bangs for the first time since probably middle school!
Two headed baby:
Gentlemen grooming lessons:
We put on our party hats one day to wish Uncle Matt a very happy birthday!
Catherine decided to bust out last summer's dress with thermals underneath!
John and his fox hat on the way to pick up after school:
And a sleepy, stiff-fingered baby on our way home!
And then some tummy time with big sister:
And brother of course!
Cute baby in his ranger outfit helping mommy pack for her trip!
Matthew on the 100th day of school with the 100th day shirt he helped "design". Thanks Target dollar bin!
And a picture his teacher sent of Matthew at 100 years old! It was apparently a creative writing activity and he wrote that when he was 100: "I wud play widyo gamz. I wud nap." Seems like a solid plan!
Speaking of school work, they also worked on President's Day things and I'm not sure what pictures of presidents he has seen but on multiple pages he wrote that the president (or if he were president he would "col and worc." To be fair, a quick google search confirms there are a lot of pictures of the president doing just that:
As I sent Matthew off for the 100th day of school I headed up into the Crazy Mountains for a girl's weekend. Last winter, just before I got pregnant with John I went skiing with some fabulous ladies and we discussed a girl's trip. Forest Service cabins tend to fill up quickly so we had to book it in August when I was only mostly pregnant. Anyway, I always just assumed I would go and the reality of having a 3 month old never really set in! When the time arrived to fine tune the details I couldn't imagine NOT joining in after a year of thinking about it so John got to come on his first and only girl's weekend! The plan was to ski in to the cabin about 2 miles but when we arrived there was not enough snow to ski on so we drove to the cabin and dropped our gear. Here's the view from the front!
Once we got unpacked it started snowing like gangbusters so the other ladies took the cars down to the parking and John and I got the cabin warmed up and the fire going.
The next day we hiked down to the cars and drove to find more snow for a great snowy day of skiing!
I won't lie, energy management for me was a big thing as most of the time I was actively skiing John slept, which meant when I was ready to rest he wasn't! Poor thing only tipped over twice, but besides being mostly confused it didn't phase him at all! He however did not sleep well in my sleeping bag or in his little tent so we have some work to do on that before our summer adventures! All this made the return hike after skiing a bit of a slog for me but I'd do it all again in a heartbeat :-)
The next day we woke to blue skies! This was the view behind the cabin!
The cabin!
We couldn't get the cars back up so we hiked/sledded out all our stuff
After hiking back to the cars and stowing our gear we decided to take advantage of the gorgeous day and squeeze in one more ski! John was excited and adorable as always in his bear suit!
The other gals took turns hauling John so I could squeeze in some actual gliding on my skis in this gorgeous area!
I think we're still at least a year from skiing with just our whole family. It was one thing to have 6 moms to one baby or even with 2 adults and 2 kids like James and I did a few years ago. It's totally different for 2 adults with 3 kids at this point :-)
The kids and James had a great weekend too, though for the life of me I can't remember what they did! We all got to cheer on Virginia one more time when I got home. Catherine is greatly confused by all the Virginia mascots and logos so she just cheers for the Bobcats the whole time!
And a very happy baby to see daddy again!
Though my sneaking away wasn't exactly a "relaxing" weekend and was utterly exhausting, it was completely good for the soul to spend some time off the grid with just John and some time chatting and laughing with amazing ladies who made sure I was included even though I couldn't come exactly kid-free. Thankfully John is super chill and James understands my need for my semi-annual weekend escapes :-)
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