February recap

This post has been in my drafts folder almost since February! And it's almost time to do a March re-cap, so here we go . . . 

In February, of course, we spent a lot of time on Valentine's Day. Here are a few pics off my phone, fitting of the month of love. H is (usually) so good to Zelly. He just loves his little sister and she loves him, to the point of wanting to hold his hand all of the time in the car. He's usually good about humoring her!

Henry had a little Valentine's party with the neighbor boys--just low-key. We made robot Valentine's boxes using a kit from Oriental Trading Co, had some heart snacks and red punch, and they played legos and jumped on the tramp. I forgot to take a pic before they all went home, but here are 4 of them at least!

We also had a fun weekend with the M cousins, mostly hanging out, but we did watch a few movies and made it to the Wilk for a round of bowling:



Mister finished off basketball season:

And H and I played many a round of Uno in the month of February, and a few rounds of Guess Who:

Sweetie and I went to a mother/daughter pedicure morning for Activity Days

Sweetie finished her big ancestor report project on Grandpa Skin and gave her presentation, complete with sourdough pancakes:

And H and Zelly and I went to the museum a few times. On this particular visit, there was a girl eating sand as fast as she could, shoving it down, while her mom just watched and said, "Don't eat sand, dear." We had to leave after a few minutes. I couldn't watch!

Zelly forgot that she loves horses! She remembered after we got going (and after the fascination of watching one of the other horses pee).

We had a great February!

Enlarge the Place of Thy Tent

Sweetie and I went to the conference center yesterday to attend Women's Conference. We met up with the Rock girls to carpool, and thanks to Alicia's stellar driving skills, we survived a car pulling right in front of us while going 65 mph on the freeway. But that's not what I got on to blog about.

When Alicia first texted me to see if I wanted tickets for Sweetie and I, I kind of waffled. I wasn't sure I wanted to fight the traffic or take the extra time to drive up to Salt Lake City. It's easier to stay home and watch it.

But then I remembered our years in Massachusetts.  I remembered after that first week of teacher training, how I felt so alone in my beliefs (for so many different reasons). We went to the Boston temple at the week's end because I needed so badly to go somewhere where the feeling was familiar. And I remembered driving an hour to get to stake conference, which wasn't even in a stake building because we didn't have one. I hated the drive, but I needed to look around and see the gathering of others who believed.

I learned then that there is real power in "enlarg[ing] the place of thy tent," as Isaiah says. Real power in gathering together and in knowing that you are a part of something larger than yourself. I wanted Sweetie to feel that power, to look around the conference center at all of the strong and faithful girls and women and feel the strength of the heritage and membership that is hers.

January Recap

January was kind of a low-key month for us, thankfully, and we mostly tried to enjoy our days. We tested out our face-making skills at dinner time (some families have nice conversations. Not us.)

 We said good-bye to our friend the mini-van and bought a new, bigger ride.

Zelly donned pigtails for the first time and thoroughly enjoyed making lots of cookies.

We met cousins for lunch and shopping:

We ate nachos and wings for the SuperBowl and our Patriots even managed to win in a last-minute victory.

We went on a Sunday afternoon family outing to the Springville Art Museum's "Religious Art of Utah" exhibit. I didn't get pictures of my crazy kids who mostly spent the time trying to make each other guess how much various pieces of art were being sold for. But here's one of my favorite of the temple pics that I took to remind me that I can try painting just a piece of the temple.

I took Mister skiing a couple of times and managed to finally finish Zelly's quilt, after 2 and a half years.

We did do a little work. Mister slaved over his science project and still managed to have J and I both working on it at midnight the night before. We had lots of moldy bread on our hands.

I observed classes at BYU to get ready to teach next year, and I brushed off my dissertation and started serious revisions again: