Portuguese Man-O-War

I needed to clean my house after all our sick days, but instead we went to the beach. And it was the right choice. The wind meant that it didn't feel nearly as hot, it was refreshing and relaxing and gorgeous. Surprisingly, there were red flags set about every ten feet just off the shore. These flags were different than the ones at the lifeguard stations that tell whether there is a rip current or high waves or animal life. Turns out, they were to warn against HUNDREDS of Portuguese Man-o-War that were hanging out all along the beach and in the water. So we didn't really get in the water, but we found a spot with relatively few beached jelly fish to watch out for and still had a wonderful time in the sand. 

The kids spent the majority of their time making 'cakes' in their buckets. Will had to sit in time out for a while and piled sand on his legs while he was sitting there. When I told him he could get out, he said "do you want a bite of my cake?" and I said "You made a cake?" and he gets this sparkle in his eye and says "Yeah, I call it  my Buried Man Cake." and he gestures to his legs. BAAHAAHAA I was laughing so hard. First off, that he called himself a man, second off, that he knew it was hilarious as he said it to me.

These things are so crazy to see sitting all along the beach. From a distance it looks like someone left air-filled plastic bags all over and didn't clean up. They are so pretty though! I did look it up and it will still sting if you pop the outer layer when they are beached like that. So it's a good thing we stayed away!

It was SOOOOOO pretty! The water was this incredible turquoise color that just took my breath away every time I looked at it!

My Birthday+RC Car races+Chalk

For my birthday, Sterling surprised me with a teapot! I LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I have told Sterling several times that our kitchen is going to be BRIGHT with lots of BOLD BIG colors. (Eventually, when we own a home.) The rest of our house can have soothing tones overall and be a little more calm, but my kitchen I want yellow and red and turquoise and all the colors. (one sister called me once to show me a pinterest pic of a kitchen with a retro red stove. yes!) This tea pot brought all the bright happy colors and it is awesome! Sterling got me addicted to Celestial Bengal Spice Chai (which I guess is some sort of herbal tea) and if you haven't tried it, you should. It's delicious. Anyway, whenever I make some I realize I should've just made more for Sterling-so now we have a teapot and we can make it for everyone! It was the cutest gift and I love it so much! Love you Sterling!

Sterling got excited and had me open this the week before my birthday, on the day of our anniversary. So on my ACTUAL birthday a week later, he came home after a long day fairly late (730ish) and surprised me with a fitbit! I had NO idea. I didn't have a strong knowledge of what it did, but man, I have been enjoying it so much! It's fun to have my texts show up--I feel like I have my phone out during the day waaaay less. It's fun to track my steps and sleep and things, but mostly Sterling got it for training for the half marathon I'm running. I used it for a strength conditioning workout today and it was so fun! It records so much and Sterling knows how much I love to set goals and see where I'm at, and this has already been such a fun thing! Sterling definitely won in the gift giving department. He's good like that.

 On Saturday, after getting our van back (YAY FOR NOT HAVING A RENTAL ANYMORE!!!!!! THREE LONG WEEKS!!!), we headed to the park to let the kids ride their bikes. It backfired a bit because Molly was not a fan of riding hers in gravel/dirt and it felt hotter than Hades outside, but we still had fun. I have been to this park, but never when they were racing RC cars so that was fun to see. Sterling has taken Will twice to watch them now and Will loves it!

Russell sporting the race car hat that we kind of stole from my sister Kayli. She left it at our house and asked me to mail it back. I was mailing it along with a Schleich horse, ran into the post office, and the horse mysteriously disappeared between the van and the post office. So then I waited to mail the hat until we found the horse, which we never did. And thus, we ended up with this hat that I meant to bring BOTH times we have visited her since, and still forgotten. Sorry, Kate. I figured we might as well use it since we still have it! Plus, festive for the activity!

I was trying to catch a cool shot, but it turns out I'm not a very good judge of when an RC car will spin up a bunch of dirt, or crash, or hit another car, or fly against the railing. It was pretty exciting though.

I finally got new batteries for my camera remote--which I've been wanting to use. So Will tested it out for me.

The cutest baby alive. Poor kid skimmed his nose against the pavement at the pool the other day.

Will and his dragon.

I did the basic outline of the ballerina, she filled in all the rest!

On Sundays we don't usually play outside with chalk, because we do that all week long--but it was really nice to come outside on a beautiful day while Sterling grilled for dinner and watch the kids color. Sometimes they don't last very long, but we were pulling them away from their drawings to eat. I just really love that we live somewhere that they can go outside our front door and have some playing space. It feels so free and wonderful and warm and sunny and just feel-good. It was a good Sunday afternoon. :)

More Swim+Outside Fun+Death Week of Sickness

I got this little floatie and Baby float last fall when everything went on clearance. Because, obviously, we would be using them soon. I had the same baby float for Ruth but eventually threw it away and we tried a blow up thing a few months ago that was not helpful. So I was excited to get the same thing and Russ can sit up now so he was happily splashing away in the pool!

The water really is that clear and it really was that bright. It was such a gorgeous day. We went on Friday afternoon, because our schools are weird and didn't actually celebrate President's Day on the day of President's Day. So we had Friday off to play!

Those two! All the heart eyes. The other day Ruthie told me "Russ just loves me so much!" and I said "He does! He is such a good, lovey baby." and Ruth looks at me and very seriously says "Yes, but he loves me the most of everyone." They definitely have a special love.

These two, on the other hand. When they aren't at each other's throats, they are so hard in cahoots and game-playing it's miraculous. Now if we could get more of the game-playing, and less of the fighting, that would be nice.  Today I was blow-drying my hair and I turned off the bathroom light to come downstairs and I hear Molly say "that's mom! Put it away!" They had asked to play the kindle and I had said no screen time...hmmm...but they held out on their story together quite impressively. I don't even want to think about what that means for the teenage years.

Dear February weather, you are perfection. Perfect 82 degrees for swimming in the hot sun, for riding bikes in the cool(er-ish) evening, for walking to the park and only slightly dying of heat. I can feel like we are on the cusp of excruciating humidity and heat, but we are just on the tip. Just enough to thoroughly enjoy and only die a little bit (like on Saturday at the park where we lasted ten minutes and agreed that only activities with water from here on out until next November.) but making the water oh-so-enjoyable. I love you February. Please stay forever. Sincerely, a concerned citizen.

She did it!!!! Molly has been much more reserved at trying bike riding than my other children. I mean, this is Molly, so she's pretty much just flat-out refused and ran alongside the other kids while they ride. But something changed and she decided she'd give it a go. And she did amazing! She has the 'slow and steady wins the race' mantra down and solemnly pedals along after the older kids. I'm so happy that she tried it and did such a great job!!

It's our Valentine's Day tradition to have little envelopes that we all write each other valentines in throughout the week, and open for FHE. And then make and decorate cookies. Unfortunately, it's been a rough week. Last week Ruthie had strep, then Will randomly had a fever one day. Then I got sick-ish on Saturday and Sunday. I went to church but slept for three hours afterwards (this is two sundays ago now). Monday I felt better and cleaned the whole house. Tuesday and Wednesday I was out. It was some sinus/head cold/gift from the devil horrible-ness that made my head feel like explosion would be better and I was proud I got the kids to school--and then laid on the couch the rest of the day. Poor Molly watched so much Doc McStuffins in those couple of days. Wednesday night it seemed to break a little bit, and I started feeling better and could sleep that night. Unfortunately, due to taking a few different medications to try and survive--and not nursing because a kid with four teeth who is teething and tries to use me as his teething toy is no fun, combined to mean that I basically weaned Russ. Not so much on purpose, but I didn't fight it too much either. I mean, the whole teething thing is pretty painful. A few bites in and the searing pain when he tries to eat again, not really my cup of tea. I was only nursing him 3x a day anyway--so we weren't losing much. Luckily, after an afternoon of sobbing, and my head splitting in whatever sickness I had, he took a bottle. And he hasn't looked back. It seems like Molly will be the only child that I make it to a year with. The rest were all about 8 months. And I don't feel bad. Most kids don't get teeth til they are a year old. Molly miraculously just never bit me. But if anyone has had a baby full-on bite you when they have four-six big ol' teeth in their mouth...they will understand. 

So after that, of course it just ran the rounds. Will had a fever one day, and slept most of the next day. Molly had a fever for the past two days and now has the post-viral-body-rash to prove it. Ruth had a light fever one day, but has mostly been just fine. Russ was SUPER fussy one day with a fever--who knows if it was what we had or teething...but it was probably both.

So by the time my birthday came around...I was really, really done. Sterling spent Sunday (my birthday was Monday but we celebrated when Sterling could be home) taking care of me and it was amazing. He sent me to church with just Will because we were the only for sure healthy ones (Russ was doing well but he naps during church time anyway, so it only made sense to let him have his nap.).  It was the most I've been able to focus on church in a long time and it was really nice. Then he had dinner going when I got home--grilled bbq chicken and rice and this delicious corn and bean salad. We had my favorite--angel food cake with whipped cream and strawberries. OH which reminds me that on Saturday morning he also got up and let me go running, and when I got home from my run he had crepes made with nutella and strawberries and powdered sugar to eat. Basically--the man was amazing at restoring me back to normal after the REALLY REALLY hard days of the week before that he couldn't be there to help with. 

I *think* the sickness has run it's course. And as sad as it is to see my kids sick, I am very thankful that I am up and going again because we really need some groceries and clean bathrooms around here and less screen time, haha.

We did eventually make Valentine's cookies. Valentine's Day was the day I was probably most sick and Sterling didn't get home until 730 at night. So we postponed our cookie making. But it was just as good when we did get to it!

For Valentine's Day Sterling couldn't be home and I was sick, so I bailed on life and got Sonic for dinner. And I didn't want to bring it home to clean up the mess, and I really didn't want to get the rental van dirty, but decided--better the van than my house. So Will hopped up and we listened to the Magic TreeHouse while eating. Will is in LOVE with it right now--so if you have a 5 year old boy, try it out! The first book in the series was about dinosaurs which he is totally in love with because they just learned about them at school--so it was a hit from the beginning. We have books 1-8 on audio right now from the library and today when we got home from the beach the kids sat for another ten minutes while I unloaded everything and then finally I told them we'd have to finish it tomorrow. Haha.

First Pool Day of 2018! (Feb 7th)

Jumping in for the first plunge! I thought it would be freezing (we'd had some 60 degree weather) but it was BEAUTIFUL!

How are all of my kid's swimmers?!!?!? This summer we need some lessons because Will and Molly have to be watched VERY closely--but they can theoretically do it by themselves. I just know they need to be more solid.

This was such a beautiful afternoon.