February fun

Here are some various things from February.  Alex went with Nathan, Jared and some of the youth on an early morning temple trip.  They had to be there a little before 7:00am, so it was a really early start.  Nathan and Jared also had a multi-stake conference and dance in the afternoon and evening, so it was a long day.  Nathan experienced his first slow dances and all the awkwardness of dancing with girls.  

I went to the temple by myself the next Friday, when the kids had off of school.  

I caught this cute moment between Jared and Kai - I guess they were having a bonding moment... 

Jared went on a hike with his friend Jay on the Monday off of school.  

Owen had a good time at a birthday party, putting a massive amount of sugar on his own decorated cupcake.  

Alex was out of town for Valentine's Day (again), but he surprised me by buying some chocolates ahead of time and then sending me a message where they were "hiding."  I may have consumed the whole box in 2 days. 

We didn't spend much time on making Valentines this year, but printed off some Lego valentines for classmates.  The kids aren't supposed to bring any candy, so the Valentines aren't very exciting.  Maybe we should try to be more creative next year with toys or something attached to the Valentines.  The kids don't do Valentines parties here either.  No sugar, no food, no games or parties = no fun...

I made lasagna for dinner, to go along with garlic bread, green beans, Martinelli's, and sugar cookies.  I never took a picture of the cookies, but here's an image from online to document the day...

School things

The kindergarteners celebrated 100 days of school by parading through all of the classrooms.  They made shakers, filled with 100 items.  Savannah chose to put pennies in her shaker.  They had fun making noise throughout the school.

Savannah made her own cereal shop at home one day - she wanted us to pick a kind of "seareell" and pay money for it.  She is very creative... and cute! 

Weston's hair looks pretty good on crazy hair day... his hair is crazy every day.  But it gets styled on the school's crazy hair day!  

Owen, Weston, and Savannah (and I) participated in the jogathon.  They ran laps, which got counted by a chip on their shoe, for 30 minutes.  The TK-1st ran in the first group, then 2nd-3rd, then 4th-6th grades.  I ran with both Savannah and Weston.  I wasn't able to stay for Owen's group (Savannah had an eye doctor appointment), so I didn't get any pictures of Owen.  I was really proud of all of them though.  Owen ran 35 laps, Weston did 31, and Savannah did 28.  Both Savannah and Weston jogged with me the whole time, without walking!  They stopped to get water a couple of times, but other than that, they had a nice steady jog.  Savannah got the most laps of anyone in her age group - the goal for the kindergarteners was 10 laps!  I think Weston and Owen both got the 2nd most laps in their grade (with the goal for them to run 15 laps.)  They did a great job.  (And I patted myself on the back for running for an hour.)  😏

Family time

Church went from 3 hours to 2 on Sundays, with more added emphasis on home centered teaching.  Here is from one of the Come Follow Me lessons at home, talking about the birth of Jesus.  Savannah wanted to be Mary and brought out her "manger" and baby.  She did a great job showing love to her baby.  

We took a family hike!  It was a little cold and windy, but had a nice outing.  The dog came along with us, and Savannah fell down and got a scrape early on (which made her not want to walk anymore)... but other than that, it was nice to get out together.

We all squeezed into a cavity in the rock - I can't believe we all fit in there at once.