Happy Mardi Gras/Valentine's Day/Chinese New Year!

Mid-February had me running exhausted for a week: Mardi Gras, February 13; Valentine's Day, February 14; Chinese New Year's Eve and Day, February 15 & 16. It was an intense week. We celebrated all of them. And watched Olympics every night. Favorite sports were biathlon (Shad and I), snowboarding, bobsled, luge (Dancy), speed skating (Samson: "Go, go, go! You got it!"). It actually took some persuasion to get the kids to watch figure skating with me, but Thora started copying some moves. We learned that biathlon actually makes sense: it's a Norwegian military training activity that used to be a way to revere the gods! And it's called skiskyting (ski shooting), which means so much more than biathlon. We also learned what the stripes on the South Korean flag mean, and that the flag is called "Supreme Ultimate Flag."

Anyway, holidays.

Shad and I fell in love with New Orleans four years ago when we spent a day in the city before cruising out to Mexico. We've shared that fondness with our kids, and when I read the Marie-Grace & Cecile story arc of the American Girl collection, that sealed the deal. We had to start a tradition of celebrating the holiday. In my mind, that meant we'd have Gumbo and Beignets, but that morning we woke up and the kids reminded me that in the books they celebrated by attending costume balls. So we dressed up and had a dance party after dinner. Aaaaaand I was still mentally exhausted from Thora's potty training that I didn't look at my beignet recipe before evening when I was going to cook them for dessert...and saw that the dough takes 3 hours. Rain check, kids. I don't feel confident enough in the gumbo recipe I used (it didn't have rice!) to share it, so I won't.

My plan: Gumbo and Beignets

What happened: Gumbo and a costume-dance party

{Tommy, Dancy, Katie, Thora, me, Samson}

{Tommy, Dancy, Katie, Thora, me, Samson}

These two are precious. Katie and Tommy ballroom dancing.

No pictures from Valentine's Day. Normally we make homemade Valentines starting in January, and I tried that and decided it just wasn't worth the headache when no one wanted to do it or clean up afterwards. Sorry to anyone who had been looking forward to that mail this year. We also started a tradition last year to have heart-shaped cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I don't remember what we did instead, but we had a substitute option and we going to have the cinnamon rolls later in the day. That didn't happen. The cans are still in my fridge. But I did succeed in cooking Borscht & pierogis (frozen from Costco) for dinner. Borscht because I've been wanting to try it forever...and because it's red for Valentine's Day. It was delicious! Such wonderful flavor, but Shad couldn't get over the color. Recipe found here.

My plan: Homemade Valentines, heart-shaped cinnamon rolls, Borscht, pierogis

What happened: Borscht and pierogis

Next day, I woke up and began planning my Chinese New Year snacks. I love CNY! I taught English in China for 6 months and was there for all of Spring Festival, the month long celebration with CNY in the middle. My celebrating isn't exactly traditional because I didn't have anyone teaching me how they celebrate. I just kinda figured things out a little as it progressed. But to me, CNY is the day of the year that I get to bring China back into my life for a day and relive it. If only for a day. And it's such a wonderful day!

The Chinese market I found was close to the Olympic Training Center. I had just been down that way the previous morning for a hearing test for Tommy (everything normal, just another piece of bureaucracy I had to go through to get him approved for speech therapy to work on his R's. That was the third appointment, I think, and not the last.). Anyway, I decided that since I was by the training center again for the Chinese market, that this time we would take a field trip.

Snowcapped Pike's Peak

We were joined on our tour by another homeschool family and enjoyed their company. After the tour, the kids discovered that a four-man bobsled can fit seven kids. At least, I think it was a four-man. I honestly don't remember. But it was used by Team USA in one of the Olympics.

{Katie, Thora, Dancy, Samson, those two aren't mine, Tommy}

"Take picture of me, Mom!"

Nothing creepier than seeing your kids' eyes whited out...

{Tommy, Dancy, Katie, Thora, Samson}

Dancy and Sam

They really wanted a picture on this side of the globe, not on the front with the USA and Olympic rings. Check out them poses!

{Tommy, Katie, Dancy, Thora, Samson}

My sisters probably share the same memories I have of this sculpture. I love letting my kids pose for pictures!

{Thora, Tommy, Katie, Dancy}

Tommy wanted a picture with this plaque.

Almost, Katie, almost!

Just chillin'.

{Thora, Dancy, Samson}

Then we hit the Chinese market and came home with our haul. Not that these are traditional snacks, but they're part of my tradition because these were what I enjoyed eating in China...mostly when we were freezing cold in our apartment wearing 10 layers of clothes and cuddled under comforters in front of a space heater during the crazy winter with highs of 30 degrees with no indoor heat because the climate of that region is similar to Cuba. Good times! Marshmallows with jelly filling to be roasted later. Ah, sweet memories of teaching the Chinese to add that to their barbeque parties! Oh, and that's squid jerky in the middle. Good for the long days of rough traveling.

"Please, Mom, I want some more jello shot!"

Dinner: homemade egg rolls, yakisoba (yes, that's Japanese, but I wanted to eat it anyway), dumplings (frozen from Costco).  (Recipes found here.)

And hot and sour soup. With my Asian spoons that I *finally* got for Christmas. I've only been wanting them for 10 years. And Shad says we should've gotten them forever ago. *eye roll*

Kids are always determined to use chopsticks any time I do. Samson made it work with his dumpling.

This girl is awesome. She wore her red shirt (that I bought at Walmart that time she was throwing up during the tire change) and put gold stars on it to create the Chinese flag. I love her!

We got to share our holiday with Shad's Dungeons & Dragons group that meets at our house every Thursday. CNY is best spent with friends and family, especially when I'm determined to have allllll my Chinese food I want to eat. We ate good food, snacks, and had fun taking *virgin* jello shots.

I took one of the cases of jello shots to my church volleyball group that I meet up with on Thursday nights. I thought it'd be fun to say that the losing team gets to take a shot (we usually have 5 or 6 games), but only a couple people tried one with me. So I ended up being the only one taking shots.

And then CNY day we had a pizza-game night with the Schroeders and saw fluffy low clouds over the city. No dragon and lion parades, but this'll do.

The Schroeders enjoyed the jello shots with us while we played Lords of Waterdeep.

Venturing Out of Our Cave

We did get out of the house just a little bit...tempting fate in trusting Thora's muscle control. We went to the zoo with Shad's parents.

We used some of Lisa's Christmas gift money intended for zoo activities and fed some animals.

{Thora and Katie (with Lindsey) feeding the giraffes.

{Katie}

{Tommy}

I helped Samson get high enough. He was a little uncertain about these large animals, so I fed the giraffe for him.

We also fed the Budgies in the Australian zone.

{Katie and Lindsey}

This gorilla saw us come to visit and leaned over into this pose.

And this pose.

And then got bored. She also gave us high fives! Very fun to interact with!

(Note Katie's face in these three pictures. As I was snapping pictures, Pris and I were laughing harder and harder at the poses this gorilla was showing me, but I think Katie thought we were laughing at her, so she performed, too!)

Nana loves owls!

{Tommy, Katie & Lindsey, Thora & Pris)

February Home Depot workshop! Built beanbag toss boards, and saw the Cat in the Hat crew. Just a month ahead of Dr. Seuss' birthday, that's all.

{Dancy, Tommy, Katie}

I took the kids up to Denver to meet my mom at the Nature and Science museum. We're going to test carbonates.

Katie wants to sketch this geode.

Scientists! Tommy did a cheek swab to see his cells under the microscope.

{Thora, Tommy, Dancy}

Kiva planks! There was a demo video playing in the room, so Tommy was inspired by one of the designs and worked to replicate it.

Dancy came in right at the end of Kiva time and was upset that it was time to clean up.

The workers were kind and let her have a couple more minutes. She was very happy getting to "finish" her project.

Tommy wanted a group picture on the dinosaur. Dancy wasn't happy. Can't please everyone.

{Dancy, Thora, Grandma, Samson, Katie, Tommy}

"Thunder" dance party/lip sync from earlier in January (Thora has a bare butt for potty training).

"Take picture of me!"

I have homemade coconut oil-beeswax lotion. Samson kept finding it and using it in his hair.

Katie is always good with a headwrap.

Thora, always finding something to lick. This time Dancy's sock.

Colorado: Where you get snow on one side of the street and not the other.

Just so exhausted. Diva.

Sam loves to sit at the piano and sing "I am a Child of God." Sometimes he sings the whole song, this time he didn't.

He also loves "Wise Man."

Hibernating January

In December, Thora suddenly had interest in potty training, thanks to Dancy getting her excited about pretty underwear. So I did what little I was willing to do before Christmas: I got excited with her, we picked out her treat (biggest purple bag of Skittles possible!), and discussed that we would start after New Year. While happy to finally be ready to potty train this three-year-old, I savored the little freedom I had left.

Momma got contacts and Samson got a haircut! Shad did the cut while I was at my appointment, so it was a surprise for both of us when I came home. Samson was the first to notice I wasn't wearing glasses.

This is Thora being Princess Sofia talking on the phone to her sister, Princess Amber.

Hooray! She peed! Lori got many of these pictures, and some of poop when that finally happened. Aren't you glad you aren't Lori?

Potty training Thora took the. whole. month. She picked up peeing on the toilet pretty quickly, then I gave her underwear and accidents were all over the place. So we spent a couple days keeping the underwear clean. Then I gave her pants and the accidents were all over the place. So we spent a couple days keeping the pants clean. Then we ventured out in public. And had those accidents. And then there was the week when she pooped in her underwear DAILY. Seven or eight days straight. It was rough. I definitely had moments of crying like the mom in this video:

And then finally, FINALLY things clicked and I declared her to have become a big girl, sent Lori LOTS of poop emojis, and earned her reward: a date with Lori to get her ears pierced and have ice cream. I think that was achieved in February though. Text records show February 9th to be the date. One month and one week to potty train. Thora did voluntarily give up naptime diapers, which was more than any other kid did. So she's at a one-a-day for bedtime status and I'm happy to stay there for a while now that I'm back in the thick of potty training again with Samson.

Here's a fun story: I mostly stayed home as much as I could while potty training Thora. But there was that one time that I had to go to Walmart to get new tires on the van...and was there for nearly 2 hours while they changed the tires and oil...and Thora was wearing underwear (which she did keep clean and even peed on the toilet, but was still stressful for me), Katie threw up twice, and Sam's nose was running constantly. I was so glad when they paged me to pick up my van! Oh, icing on the cake: the cleaning lady at Walmart never got to the vomit the whole time I was there. Don't know what she was doing, but they were definitely paging her for over an hour.

Back to pictures...

Samson just got it into his head one day that he needed to have tape on his hands. Kept it up for a couple days.

Maaaany months ago back in Kansas we found this huge Lego Friends amusement park set on clearance. Shad and I kept it hidden in our closet until Christmas and gave it to the kids as a group gift. We all participated in building it.

Mom made a chocolate smoothie for breakfast! Yay for sneaky spinach!

Art class. Always colorful.

Adorable

Sometimes they exasperate me.

Milk in the hair.

From milk in the hair to falling asleep on the couch reading books. Parenting is a roller coaster.

And then cuddling on me while sleeping. This almost never happens anymore!

Because we live in Colorado where it's dry as heck and I humidify like crazy. And we order a lot from Amazon. Tommy's art.

I'm trying to remember, but I'm thinking this was the first snow that stayed for more than 12 hours. Or maybe I woke up and surprise! This was there. Dunno. But I still love this window view.

Frozen flakes on the roof.

Got a new fridge! That was an exhausting day. The fridge that was already in the house had a bad leaking problem. As in, I had to always keep a cup to catch the drips and if the cup got bumped or pushed out of place, water everywhere. So we managed that for a while, but the deal breaker was the day I suddenly heard the water pouring into the cup. Found this fridge on facebook for $125 and the guy delivered it. Missionaries helped install it while Shad was at work. 

Dancy built this.

Snow day! I figured out a good system for managing the kids playing in the snow and still keeping the carpet at the entry clean and dry: double layers of towels and processing one kid at a time. I'd sit them down and pull off all the wet clothes, then take them over to the fireplace to dry in front of the fire. Kids took to the couches with blankets to watch Netflix and warm up.

So that system worked well until Tommy's coat was too close to the fireplace and was actually touching the glass and the zipper melted.

And thus, January ended.