February 2016

February is probably my least favorite month of the year.  It's usually grey and snowy and by the end of the month, I often feel like winter will never end.  This February was no different, it had a lot of ugly - but thankfully - we found a lot of light and fun.

Erika and Clark came down for the weekend while I was in Texas.  The babies love having them here and were excited to take them to see the animals at the Bean Museum.

The bear makes realistic growling noises and is a little terrifying.

Even better, they all go to go swimming.  Finally, Luke and Ruby could splash as much as they wanted without making a mess in the bathroom.

It feels like he babies have been sick for most of the month.  Ruby fought a fever off and on for about a week before we finally decided that we better take them in to be checked the second week of February.  Luke ended up having the croup and asthma.  Ruby had an ear infection and her oxygen levels were so low that after doing a breathing treatment on both kids, they sent Ruby for blood work and a chest x-ray.  The poor girl, it took three tries to get her blood but the x-ray was easy.  They found some pneumonia and wanted us to really watch her breathing.  She's been back to the doctor once and her oxygen levels were better, but she continued to wheeze and cough.    

The cold and inversion has seemed especially bad this winter - for weeks we did not even see a hint of sunshine or blue skies.  Tim was lucky and escaped to the mountains for a day of skiing with Erika.  The day looked perfect.

Valentines fell on a Saturday this year and the babies and I spent the morning making Valentines cards for Daddy.  Given my limited crafting resources and abilities, I was happy that we ended up with something so sweet. 

Tim surprised me by planning a night out.  He had already made arrangements to have my parents come watch the kids so we could enjoy dinner and a movie.  Definitely my favorite kind of night with my favorite guy.

Luke learned about the joy of a candy watch.  He kept looking at his watch and saying "just five more minutes"

Time at grandpa and grandmas is always the best,

Plenty of stories,

And sometimes a little wrestling. 

As soon as the sun came out it felt like springtime even though it was only about 50 degrees.  No matter, the kids were still thrilled to go to the park.  Luke has been telling me all winter that it has been a long time since we have been to the park.For at least an afternoon he got his wish.

We moved a storage shelf upstairs to Luke's room.  He was so excited about it that before we even had a chance to move anything, he had cleaned up his room and organized his toys and games.  He was so proud of himself.  That part of his personality is so cute to me.  I love watching him figure out how to succeed on his own.  

This is so typical of me trying to get a decent picture of these two stinkers.  They were sitting in the chair reading and looked so adorable but they refused to look at me and smile.

Jami found this picture of my Grandma Eldora Childs and we have all been shocked at the resemblance to Ruby.  Even Ruby looks at the picture and says that "it's Ruby".  Glad to see that some of my genes may have made it into this little one. 

Juniper turned two!  The kids were very excited to celebrate with her...they were thrilled to help her open her gifts and blow out her candles whether she wanted the help or not. 

After six months of therapy, and babying my wrist, my range of motion was still very limited and it caused me a lot of pain.  In addition, my scan had gone keloid and was really ugly and uncomfortable - it was super sensitive and hurt to be touched.  The doctor felt like the best way to resolve all of the problems was to do a second surgery and cut out the scar and remove the hardware.  So, on February 22nd, we showed up at the surgical center for a little deja vu.  The surgery itself wasn't as bad as the first but I feel like I have taken so many steps backwards, hopefully this will be he right decision long term.  

I was pretty surprised at the amount of hardware that they removed. 

This past week has been pretty tough at our house.  In addition to healing from my surgery, we have all been hit with a serious sickness.  Luke has been completely lethargic and mostly want to stay in bed all day.  We finally took him to the doctor to discover that he has double ear infections.  

Both Tim and I felt sick all week and just kept getting worse.  We both finally gave up and went to the after hours clinic on Saturday afternoon/night where Tim was diagnosed with strep throat, and they determined that I have a super infection of sinus infection and bad eye infections with a little sore throat and earaches thrown in just for fun.  We have pretty much hibernated in our house and taken turns napping and taking care of the babies.  February has not been kind to us. 

Luckily, we did have a bright spot in our grey February when Grandpa and Grandma Whitesides came to visit for the afternoon.  They brought post Valentines surprises, read stories, danced around the kitchen, and generally made the babies happy.  

When they were ready to leave, we all went outside to say goodbye and ended up enjoying some afternoon sunshine.  The kids threw rocks and acted silly, and it reminded me that things have to get better.