Just a little ray of sunshine : February 11th - 17th, 2021: Smoothies, Valentines, & Snow for days

By some miracle it's the next night and I'm actually HERE. Go me. I have one more week to catch up on to get back to the present, so let's get to it!

Thursday Feb. 11th I started my cycle, so I kinda felt blah all day. It has kinda come back with a vengeance since entering the picture again after having Nolan and the first day is always pretty gross so I feel gross. It made me want comfort food and to just be super lazy. I pretty much gave in to that, only did half of a work out in the morning, and then lounged around with the boys the rest of the day until Maeve got home. I showed Rowan how he could follow the recipes that come with his pretend smoothie maker and boy was he obsessed. He made me about a million smoothies that day. I kept waiting for him to be done with it and decide to move on to something else, but I swear that would not have happened if I didn't intervene and put on Letter Factory to save my sanity. 😅Sometimes I justify extra screen time during the day if it's at least educational, so Letter Factory came to my rescue. We did do preschool that day and made a food graph on the floor. He would not stand or sit still though and kept jumping around too close to the food, which had me worried he was going to step on something and cause a big mess. I kept asking him to be still, to no avail, and sure enough he stepped right on a cherry tomato and the guts squirted all over the place, including on my coat and face and our rug. I was not exactly a happy camper after that and definitely snapped a little, especially considering the fact it's exactly what I was worried about. One of those I told you so moments that are so annoying. 🙄😡 I will say I'm proud of myself though because despite feeling gross that day, I managed to grit my teeth and clean all the bathrooms still, which really needed to be done. As Rowan would say- Boom!

Friday Feb. 12th was a highly anticipated day for Maeve because she had her school Valentines party. She was so beyond excited for it and it was fun to see all her Valentines from her classmates and she got a pretty good haul of candy and treats too. Her teacher made her an adorable little goodie bag too with cute heart classes, a heart straw, a heart pencil and cute stencil, and some candy/treats. It was obviously a real party! That day also happened to be Chinese New Year and I had gotten a little story time kit from the library for the kids to do - so they watched a video about Chinese New Year and listened to a story about how it came to be and then had a coloring page and activity page to do. The kit even came with little necklaces with Chinese coins on them. They loved it! Adam stopped at Trader Joes on the way home from work and came home with a bunch of pretty flowers for all of us for Valentines Day, so that was fun! He is always able to make little arrangements with flowers that are supplied at his work, but then he also got a bigger bouquet from Trader Joes. So lots of pretty flowers on our table right now! The kids love that even they got little vases of flowers. 🥰 Of course he brought home potstickers too, so that made dinner easy! We quickly ate and Maeve and I had to book it to get over to her trial hip hop class at a different dance studio. I found this one through a google search and was so surprised when I found out it would be $15 a month cheaper than the other studio she tried. It is a nice little studio. She was the only white girl there, which is cool - I like the idea of her experiencing diversity. She kept up pretty well with the hip hop moves, but afterwards said she didn't like it because the music was too loud and she had to wear a mask the whole time, whereas she didn't have to at the other studio. 🤦 Hip hop might not be for her, but they also have a Musical Theater class, which is kinda a cross between jazz and hip hop and then they also have a ballet/tap combo. We will see what she settles on! After her class, I dropped her off at Bella's house so she could celebrate her birthday with her. They had cake and watched a movie, so the lucky girl got to be out till 10:30pm. Meanwhile, Adam and I enjoyed girl scout cookies and a loaf of focaccia bread that Adam found at Trader Joes (it was delish!), while watching a movie ourselves.

Saturday Feb. 13th Maeve was a cranky mess while getting ready to go back to the dance studio to try out the other two dance classes. Turns out it's not the best idea for her to be out late, considering the fact that she often doesn't sleep in to make up for it. So it was kinda like pulling teeth to get her there, but she cheered up once she got going. Unfortunately, there was a major accident, so the real teacher for Musical Theater got stuck in traffic and didn't make it in time to teach the class, so someone else "taught" but she had no idea how to run the class so it was kind of a free for all. Luckily, we will get to do another free trial this coming Saturday to actually see what it's like. But she did get to do Tap/Ballet afterwards and enjoyed it. Her attitude is still that she'd rather go to the other studio so that she doesn't have to wear a mask, but who knows - maybe she will just love Musical Theater and I won't have to burst her bubble that we're going to pick this other studio to save some money. 🤞 After we got home, Adam rocked the kids world by making a major fort for them in the living room and I worked on preparing my YW lesson that I had to give the next day. It was on the Priesthood and Adam and I got to talking about how it's kinda fitting that men and fathers specifically can hold the Priesthood because it gives them a different special way to bond with their children, since they don't have the special bond that is created through birthing babies that mothers have. I had never really thought about it that way, but I like that. I always tell Adam that I feel bad for him that he doesn't get to experience carrying our babies like I do (it might not be a walk in the park, but there is nothing like it!!), but he does hold the Priesthood and will get to lay his hands on our children's heads multiple times throughout their lives and speak the words that God would have them hear in those moments. That is pretty dang special and amazing too! Anyway, thanks to the Pylant's, Adam and I got to go out for a Valentines date on Saturday night, so we dropped the kids off at their house and went to BJs for dinner. We waited almost an hour, which stunk, but the food was awesome - we got some really good avocado egg rolls as an appetizer and then Adam got an Asian salad and I got a quinoa power bowl with salmon in it. It was so good and had lots of different flavors going on - my favorite part though was the pickled onions! I love the tang that they added. I had never had them before, but they were so good. We also ordered a salted caramel pizookie and it was heavenly! We were stuffed to the brim walking out of there, but it was so nice to enjoy our food and have some quiet time away from the kids. 🙌 We stopped at a few stores on the way back to their place in hopes to get some Valentines goodies for the kids, but it was a serious lesson learned to not wait until the night before to get little gifts. The joke is on us because there was just about nothing to pick from! 🤦 I had hoped to get them some squishmallows, but they were all gone, so I got Maeve and Rowan each a balloon and then a little stuffed hedgehog for Nolan. I also got Rowan a box of chocolates since he didn't get the candy haul from school like Maeve did. It worked out well enough and luckily the kids didn't know I was planning on getting them squishmallows.

Sunday Feb. 14th we had ourselves a fun little Valentines Day. Although it started out in a not so happy fashion, when Rowan would not cooperate in the slightest to get dressed for church, so I had to pin him down. Then he attempted to charge at me and the baby in his anger once he was all dressed. The poor boy has some serious anger issues and it's a little overwhelming for me, honestly. I just hope and pray it's a phase considering he's still 3 and that he will grow out of it as he gets older and hopefully learns how to manage his feelings better. 🤞🙏 Heaven help me. Adam was worried about the roads on the way out because it was a bit icy that morning and he almost wanted to just turn around and go back home at one point, but I told him so help me if we don't go considering the battle I had with Rowan. That wasn't going to be for nothing! 😅 Luckily church was a breeze for me because the boys are obsessed with their Daddy, so it was Adam that got the short end of the stick and didn't get to listen super well. It's called balance - where one parent gets put through the ringer and then the other parent gets put through the ringer. It's how we survive these days with little monsters running around. 😂😜 Anyway, after we got home from sacrament meeting, the kids got their Valentines gifts from us and Adam's parents also sent some stuff for them too so they got to open that stuff as well. I also made Maeve and Rowan little Valentines cards where they had to check the box "yes" or "no" if they would be my Valentine and Maeve was so excited to make the check marks for her and Rowan. Luckily they both answered yes 😉 and Maeve immediately decided to completely copy my card design and make the same cards for me and Adam asking us if we'd be her Valentines too. 😂Gotta love 5 year olds. After this exchange, I sneaked upstairs and did some last minute prep before my Zoom lesson, which went pretty well, except for the fact that I got about zero voluntary participation from the Young Women, but what can you do. It was like crickets, but not surprising considering it's hard enough to get them to comment in person face to face. Anyway, the rest of our day was filled with Valentines fun - such as a fun little craft with the kids where we "painted" hearts by dipping them in a shaving cream and paint swirl mixture and then scraped off the excess to reveal a cool swirled design. It was pretty cool! I also made my traditional homemade Reeses hearts, which are always a hit. And then I also made some homemade refried beans to go in a soup that I made after those for finished that we all ate for dinner. It was pretty tasty! So lots of fun in the kitchen for me. 😏 Adam made another awesome fort that day for the kids and they both attempted to sleep in it when bedtime rolled around, but Rowan would not settle down so he had to go up to his bed. Maeve on the other hand did last all night! Once she was asleep, Adam and I hung out in our bedroom upstairs and finally played the Ultimate Couples game that I bought him for our anniversary in October. We have a really bad track record when it comes to doing things together other than vegging on the couch and watching shows/movies. It's kinda lame, but for some reason it's usually all that ever sounds fun. But it seemed like an appropriate way to celebrate the day and it ended up being pretty fun! Lots of random questions where we had to guess what the other person's answer would be and a few silly challenges to do too. It was a nice change of pace from how we normally spend time together.

Monday Feb. 15th was Presidents Day, so no school for Maeve and no work for Adam. We all got to sleep in a bit, which was awesome, and the kids are so great these days about just playing in their room for a while when they wake up until Nolan is awake too and I'm ready to go downstairs. It is kinda the best and something that just started happening out of nowhere recently! 🙌🙌 Adam basically ran the show with the kids all day on Monday because I had a presidency meeting and then after my meeting, he had requested that I make melonpan so I spent the rest of the day in the kitchen doing that. BUT the coolest part about is I got to use the new stand mixer that Adam ordered for me for Valentines Day. He looked up a bunch of reviews and decided to go with a Cuisinart version that looks pretty similar to a Kitchen aid and operates nearly as well, but is half the price. I was on the fence about it, but decided to stick with it and it was pretty nice to have it do all the kneading for me!! The dough came out great! It's always fun to have a new kitchen gadget to work with. I made a double batch and it is soooo time consuming to make melonpan since you have to make two different doughs and then wrap one around the other before you bake them, but man they are SO good! I was pretty happy to be finished once 7pm rolled around and they just had to rise one more time and then go in the oven. The kids got to stay up late to eat one fresh out of the oven, which worked out considering the next day ended up being a snow day and school got cancelled. Lucky Maeve!

Which brings us to Tuesday (yesterday!) - woohoo! One of our neighbors that has a daughter close to Maeve's age invited us to go play out in the snow and I am sad to say that Maeve was a total wimp and wouldn't do it. She did not want to go out in the cold, the little stinker. So we had a low key day spent inside, but it was pretty cute because she still got dressed up in a pink dress with tights to match her baby doll that wears a pink dress with tights. 😂😍 Leave it to Maeve to wear tights on a day she is just lounging around the house. Another highlight of the day was when Maeve randomly remembered one of her primary songs that they have been learning and started singing it. She got stuck and couldn't remember all the words so we looked it up and practiced singing it a bunch until she had it all learned. It was pretty cute how much fun she had practicing it and getting it mostly memorized. While we were doing that it got me remembering that if primary was happening in person right now, Rowan would be a sunbeam! I told him that, which then got us singing Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam. I was holding Nolan while singing it and would jump every time we said "beam" and before long was laughing and laughing every time I jumped. Maeve and Rowan thought it was so hilarious that he was laughing, so then they kept laughing hearing him laugh, which only made me laugh too! It was a total laughing party! 😂🥰 I just love all their little laughs and hearing them certainly warms my heart.

In other news, I gave the kids their nightly piece of candy before bed and Rowan decided to steal Maeve's laffy taffy and take a bite out of it. When I went after him to try and get it from him, he decided to chuck it across the room in typical Rowan fashion. Afterwards, when I was talking through what he did wrong I said, "Should you have thrown it across the room or handed it to Mommy?" His response was "no" 😂🤔, I repeated myself to try and stress better that he was supposed to pick the right answer and he still responded with a no. 🤦 I swear, that kid is always confused! Every time I ask him what he should do instead of scream or hit someone when he gets mad, he responds "say sorry" -- he has the order all wrong in his head and no matter how many times we talk about it he always says the same wrong answer. 🤦🤷 3 year olds!

Oh and I guess I should also mention that last night Adam thought our bedroom smelled like poop and he ended up finding a poopy diaper of Nolan's open underneath our bed and Zoey had apparently eaten all the poop out of it. 🤢 She is so gross!! Needless to say she got a bath and we rubbed some toothpaste around in her mouth to try and overcome the overwhelming poop breath. It reeked so bad! Dogs are so gross sometimes.

Oh man, I did it! I'm finally talking about TODAY now! Hallelujah. Maeve had another snow day today and currently more snow is coming down strong so she has tomorrow off too! She has been so excited to just kick it at home. The kids played pretty well together this morning while I got my workout and scripture study in and then after lunch we pulled out the playdough and had some fun making different animals, aliens, bugs, flowers, and gummy worms. After work (Adam's been working from home all week too), Adam decided to venture out to the store before the snow started coming in again to get a few more things we needed to get through the rest of the week. Maeve and Rowan went with him so I got some quiet time with Nolan, which was nice. He said so many shelves were bare just like they were when Covid became a scare. Dang! Apparently that's what happens when it snows in Tennessee - people get frantic and stock up haha. Luckily we got what we needed for the most part. On another note, what is it with my kids and potty words?! I swear, they're always talking about poop, farting, or butts. While getting them ready for bed tonight, Maeve was hopping around sticking her booty out chanting "fart! fart! fart!" and then Rowan exclaimed, "Don't let Daddy put my butt in your butt!! (referencing me)" 😳🤔and then Maeve chimed in, "Don't put on my jammie poop!" And that's when I put my head in my hands and accepted the fact that I live with a bunch of hooligans who speak nonsense 75% of the time. 🤪 So yep, that about wraps up my day today! Oh and also, fun fact - today I learned that melonpan is ridiculously good with strawberry jam in the middle of it.

And now for pictures from the last week: