February

February

This month always brings back some color and excitement. Tyler's birthday, Valentine's Day, hearts and flowers, reds and pinks. I always look forward to February. Here's what we have been up to this month:

Tyler turned 45!! How cute is he? I swear he just gets better and better with age. I love seeing the crinkles around his eyes and the gray in his hair. 45 looks good on him!!

He had two birthday celebrations... one on his actual birthday and one on Superbowl Sunday. On his actual birthday we went out for dinner, picked out his birthday gifts, and ate his favorite sour cream lemon pie. Everything that he wants for his birthday is techy and he does not trust me to pick it out and surprise him with it. So I have given up and he either orders what he wants online or goes and picks it out himself. This year the main thing that he wanted was his Virtual Reality Goggles.

Trying them out at Best Buy.

These VR goggles have been a lot of fun. You can do all kinds of adventure type experiences with them...cliff jumping, hiking, roller coasters, sky diving... and it feels like you are right there. It is really crazy to be able to look above you, around, behind, and below. The absolute trippiest thing is that through google earth you can put yourself right into the neighborhood that you grew up in and virtually walk around it. We did it with my old neighborhood in The Woodlands, TX. You can walk towards your house and look behind you and see what was really behind you and what is to the side of you etc. The kids had fun "walking around" in our old neighborhoods. I mentioned it in the last post but Tyler filmed at the ocean and at Multnomah Falls and let the kids "experience it". It has been very fun and very READY PLAYER ONE.

Then we had Tyler's usual Superbowl birthday party with all his requested foods and snacks. I think my kids love this tradition as much as he does. We had presents and more pie. Reilly sent Tyler the most hilarious birthday card and 20 bucks. She wrote in his card, "Go buy yourself something pretty!" Ha ha!!

This year there wasn't any stress during the Superbowl unlike the last two years when the Seahawks were playing. Most of us didn't really care either way. Kameron, on the other hand, did.

Tyler took the two little girls to the Daddy/Daughter(s) Dance that the high school has every year and every year these girls absolutely cannot wait to go. :)

Ailey and Bryn had the time of their lives!! They came back telling me how Daddy was dancing with them the whole night unlike the other dads whose daughters were dancing with their friends while the dads sat on the sidelines looking at their phones. Ailey said, "He was doing good dancing too!! He was lifting us and dipping us and twirling us around!!" Apparently Tyler let them do the old Dirty Dancing run and jump lift... which they each did multiple times. I was dying!! I asked Bryn if any of the other girls were doing things like that and she delightedly told me, "NO!! Just us!! It was awesome!!" Ha ha!! He then took them out to Taco Bell for a late night dinner AND let them eat inside. UNHEARD OF! They came home swooning about what a great husband I have and how lucky I am and asking, "Does Dad lift you in the air when you guys dance?" (That would be no.) The man could barely raise his arms the next day!! So funny.

Here is the official picture taken by an actual photographer at the dance... I don't know what he was smokin.

First what's up with that composition? Why are their faces so pale? Why is Bryn up on a crazy stool? Regardless, both girls fought over who got to display this picture in their room. Ailey won. Bryn gets to have the one from last year.

While all that magic was happening...Kameron and I were having a fantastic Mother/Son night. I REALLY look forward to having opportunities to have Kameron all to myself and to be able to hang out with him. I was worried that he wouldn't want to this year. His social life has really amped up recently. Therefore I was THRILLED when the girls were talking about going to the dance and he turned to me with a grin and said, "What are we going to do Mom?" Hooray!! I gladly let him pick whatever he wanted to do. He picked dinner and a movie. I was further overjoyed when he said to Tyler and the girls, "Don't come home early!!" Ha ha!

AND...this is quite MOMENTOUS... he said that we could take a selfie. BUT ONLY ONE and it had to be outside and not in the restaurant. Done!! We had a great time ourselves!! I sure love that boy of mine. He is such a great kid!!

Kameron also participated in this jazz band concert at a really cool church here in Spokane. It was gorgeous inside.

On President's Day we met my mom for sushi and tried out a new place. It was delicious.

This happened! Brynnie lost one of her front teeth. I love the toothless wonder stage!!

We also had quite a bit of this this month...

Fifteen is precious!! 

Boys are so different from girls as they navigate adolescence but some things remain the same. (Kam did give me permission to post this but only on the blog.) Bad attitudes are bad attitudes regardless of gender.

But here are some girls with good attitudes:

This was one of my favorite activities that we did this month in YW. We went and volunteered at Teen Closet. This is the most fantastic place!! It is set up like a cute clothing boutique but it is for teens in the foster care system, group homes, and homeless teens who are getting off the streets so that they can come, *shop*, and get cute stylish clothing for free. The clothes, shoes, and accessories were so cute that our girls were oohhing and aahhing over everything. I love that their mission statement is: Helping boost the self-esteem of teenagers in foster care and others in-need by providing fashionable clothing and accessories of their choice. Their motto: At Teen Closet it is their clothes, their style, their life, their choice. It is the most incredible place. It was a privilege to volunteer our time there and has really inspired me to do more in our community. They accept high quality, stylish clothing. Forget Goodwill...this place will be getting my teenagers out grown clothing. They are always especially in need of cute clothes for teenage boys. This is exactly where Kameron's clothes will be going. If you are local please support this wonderful organization. My friend, Stacy, is on the board there and she is also in our stake. She has been an inspiring speaker at various events for the YW and it was so wonderful to serve along side her.

We also had student led conferences for Kameron (huge waste of time) but he is doing great. We had the middle school open house for Ailey. It was hilarious how many teachers we know pretty well by now. It was fun to see old favorites of Reilly and Kameron and to have their teachers remember them and us and ask how the kids are doing. The best part of the entire night was that as this was our THIRD TIME sitting through it...we could leave early. Laters!

Last weekend we had a Young Women Retreat on Lake Pend Oreille. My friend, Sarah, who serves with me in YW has a lake house and we loaded up all the girls and had a fun weekend. I'm not going to lie I was somewhat dreading it. I had just gotten back from Portland the weekend before and my kids had a million activities going on, Kameron was in Moscow, Idaho at the University of Idaho with his Jazz Band that weekend. (He's off again somewhere else this weekend. Band is busy and expensive!)  Ailey had a play date and a party and Bryn had stuff going on too. Anyway... I was somewhat dreading the weekend but it turned out to be really fun!! The girls were spectacular and the other YW leaders are all good friends of mine so we had a great time as well!! Nice!!

So pretty!!

The girls passed off experiences in each of the personal progress values. We did all kinds of things...we learned to meditate, to make indian naan, to make several different crafts, hiked, took the polar bear plunge, relaxed in the hot tub, read our scriptures, shared our testimonies, cried, and laughed our heads off, ate great food, and enjoyed one another.

Love those girls!

I was in charge of choice and accountability. I taught a lesson, had them journal, and then we did a cute craft. Ailey helped me by making the prototypes.

They were cute dry erase boards made with washi tape craft that Ailey and I found on Pinterest. Ailey doesn't turn 12 until June and she was sad to miss out on the retreat. This was the text that she sent to all the girls.

The finished products

Then we closed out the month preparing for Ailey's 6th grade promotion. All the pictures were due yesterday...baby pictures, Kindergarten pictures and pictures of the kids at school activities taken over the years. Man, it went by fast!!

Cute Baby Ailey!! Remember Kiddie Kandids?

One night Tyler came home from work with these for me. So thoughtful and much appreciated!!

Add to all of that Valentine's Day and our trip to Portland, fun lunches with friends eating lots of crepes, good health (no more weird bp issues), Reilly breaking up with Justin, and the fact that my spring flowers are emerging heralding the news that spring is on its way, and that pretty much sums up a fun month!!

I leave you with this horrifying sight that emerged this month out of nowhere:

Yes! A mustache!! Kameron thought I was full of crap when I kept commenting on it. Finally he required proof. Good thing he got shaving cream and a razor for Valentine's day!!  Ha Ha!!