We had a Leap day celebration. How might you celebrate Leap Day? Here is how the Stuard's celebrated: Julia, Natalie and I decorated with frogs leaping and number 29 being hung up. Julia made little 29's and put them everywhere, it was really cute. Mitch was in charge of the Leap Day activities which included dinner at McDonald's and then a trip to Fred Meyer where each kid was able to pick out 29 jelly beans of their own choosing from the Jelly Belly dispensers. We went home and read 29 verses in our scriptures and stayed up till 8:29. And that is how we celebrated Leap Day...
Over Mid-Winter Break in hopes of something "fun to do" we went to the dollar store and each picked out something that we wanted. Natalie decided on a three pack of pin wheels
Cameron knew instantly what he wanted. A whoopee cushion. I had no idea that he even knew what those were. He was so excited to get home and try it out. To his despair it was already broken before we got it home. They had used a box cutter at the store and sliced it so it wouldn't blow up. I was going to take it back to the store and get my $1 back but realized that it was not worth the trip.
Julia decided on this: A magic growing pet flamingo
You put it in a jar of water and after a couple days it is supposed to "hatch" out of its egg. It is taking a little longer than we thought but it is finally starting to hatch. The girls are very excited. Yesterday Natalie was looking at it and she said to me "Can the Flamingo breathe in the water? Is it going to be okay?" It then hit me that she thought that we were actually growing a real flamingo and it was going to be our pet. I could see the look of disappointment in her eyes when I told her it was fake and just a pretend flamingo. What a bummer!
On a side note: Cameron's pack in cub scouts is working on "pets" this week. One of the things to pass off is "Take care of a pet." Poor guy he doesn't even have a fish to take care of. Maybe our pet flamingo might count!
It seems like among moms there are two types: Moms who LOVE Play-Doh and Moms who HATE Play-Doh. I have never made a declaration one way or another on it, but have seen many moms plead their case as to why they love it or hate it. Yesterday as it was the first day of a long, cold, wet week of Mid-Winter Break we saw a commercial on the TV for a fun looking dentist Play-Doh set. It reminded us that we haven't played with our Play-Doh stuff in awhile. The kids got right to work getting it all out and playing with it for about 30 minutes. After that they were done playing with it, Play -Doh was everywhere. I tried coaxing and pleading with them to clean it up but after another 45 minutes passed I just did it myself. As I was cleaning it off the counter, chairs, and floors the thought came to me "This is a mess and guess what? I don't like this stuff at all!" So there you go, I surprised even myself and learned something new about me. I am one of THOSE moms.
Lucy is discovering her hands and every day I find her sucking two fingers. It is very cute, maybe not in three years from now, but for now at three months it is. :) The poor little sweetheart has been really sick. Hopefully she will start feeling better soon.
NBC has a new TV show called Up All Night. I personally have never watched it but around the Stuard house we could film our very own episodes of Up All Night
Starring: Lucy Elizabeth
Co-Starring: Mom and Dad
With special guest appearances from:
We are SO tired. No one is feeling well lately and we are up pretty much all night. So this afternoon this is how the two girls looked.
They sure are cute but Mitch and I could sure use to get some sleep around here. For Christmas Mitch got me a photo plague that says, " Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass, it's learning to dance in the rain" He got it for me as a joke because he hates those things but the joke was on him when I hung it up in the house! Last night about 4 am when I literally had been up all night Mitch jokingly said this quote to me but you know it is true. So I am going to try a little harder to enjoy everything going on even when it is getting no sleep. As a side note: Today was BAD day, after spending ALL day on the phone with Dr. offices, at Dr. appointments and arranging for prescriptions for MORE pinworm medication. I had a MELTDOWN around dinner when my prescriptions fell through. Pinworms are the worst!
Today was not the best day of my life, it included: Pin worms, a colicky baby, a sassy four year old, a kid who wanted to go to school that shouldn't have and a kid that needed go to school that didn't want to, a head cold, an entire house of bedding to be washed including our 4,000 stuff animals and oh! did I mention PIN WORMS?! ....Yeah, so in the words of Forrest Gump, "That's all that I have to say about that"
Our family loves Groundhogs day. Really I have no idea why, we just do. The kids laughed and laughed this morning at the pictures above on the Internet. They thought Phil being interviewed was hilarious! They all said how much they wished they could have been in Pennsylvania this morning for the festivities. They thought maybe the Smith's got to go since they live close by (well, a few states away...)The minute I walked out of my room this morning Natalie met me in the hall with a great big smile on her face and said, "Morning momma, Happy Groundhogs Day." This is the reason I stayed up late last night making these:
Mr. and Mrs. Groundhog
They should be a tasty after school snack this afternoon!
Right before Christmas I signed Julia up for a three day cheer camp put on at the high school with the high school cheerleaders. At the end of the 3rd day they got to perform the cheers they learned at half time at a varsity basketball game. Julia was absolutely adorable. We left Natalie and Lucy at home with Aunt Katie and spent a fun evening watching Julia cheer and Cameron got to see "his first high school basketball game ever." She had a great time and it was something special that only she got to do!
They were selling special hair bows that Jules thought were so awesome, she just had to have one.What can I say her dad and mom have a soft spot!
Yep, I am talking this little monkey! Every time you hold her to your shoulder she starts licking it and making sucking noises. She is the slobber queen. As much as I hate it she might have to start wearing a bib during the day because she is so wet. ( I HATE when babies wear bibs as part of their outfits, I know I am weird!)
Dale came home Friday, January 20th after serving two years in the Joao Pessoa Brazil mission! Laura made the comment how weird it was to see our brother struggling to speak English and being able to fluently speak another. So true!
Originally I planned on taking Natalie and Lucy with me to the airport and to leave the two older kids in school. The weather was absolutely terrible and it ended up that school was cancelled. I thought I might not even make it to the airport myself with all the snow. The roads cleared up and I was so glad that I was able to take all the kids. It was really fun. Our power was still out so we spent the rest of the day in Bellevue hanging out and enjoying Dale. Kara's family was trying to make it to the airport also but with all the bad weather the roads were closed. They made it here later that night and with the cousins in town it became one BIG, LOUD party.
Katie and Laura made these really cute signs for the kids to hold. While we were waiting for Dale's plane to land Katie was holding the "We love you" sign. A bunch of different people would walk up to her and say "Thank you" or "I love you too!" It was quite comical and a little creepy at the same time!
Dale requested a root beer and a Subway sandwich at the airport that later made him sick! Not ready to eat American food quite yet, beans and rice for him!! They did send him home with de-worming pills, isn't that nice?
Cameron was so cute. He kept saying to me "Wow, Dale is really tall" and "Dale is really funny." He wanted to know right away how many people he taught the gospel to and if he was cold now.
All the sibs that made it to the airport.
When Dale got home, the Christmas tree was still up with some presents. Mr. Butters was all wrapped up waiting for him. Sunday we went and listened to him speak in sacrament meeting and the kids loved going to class with cousins. He did a great job. Dad had Dale bless the food in Portuguese and the kids thought that it was so cool. We had such a fun weekend with family. Thanks!! The kids absolutely love Dale. They would follow him around and pretty much attack him. I took a small video of what they did to him the whole weekend. He was nice enough to let them play with him. Welcome home!!! We missed you!!
The weather man predicted more snow last week than Seattle has seen in 25 years. It turns out that its wasn't the biggest snowstorm we've seen but it was enough to cancel school ALL week and make a huge mess. The first few days were the fun snow days that quickly turned into the non-drivable, slush, and ice. The ice turned into freezing rain and an ice storm that had us lose power. By the end of the week my patience for this storm was fading quickly. Today we were finally back to normal...almost, a two hour delay of school and a whole lot of yard work for us in the near future. The ice storm made a mess of our trees, breaking some major limbs off and lots of pine tree limbs everywhere.
Lucy's first snowfall!
She also tried a little sledding with the rest of us!
Natalie making a snow angel. As you can see our winter snow gear is slim pickens. Nat was squeezed into a WAY too small snow suit with rain boots and knit gloves. Not the best for playing out in the snow.
We are fortunate to live around family that let us come hang out at their houses for awhile when our power was off. THANK YOU!!! We stayed warm in our beds at night but it was COLD in the house.
As we were driving to Bellevue to visit with DALE!! we saw the BP gas station bears covered in snow. Julia said to me, "Those bears look like skunks!" When I turned and looked at them it made me laugh. They really did!
