February

Happy March!

February was a month full of....

 Love.

Valentine's French toast.  Ira has been a huge fan of making valentine's ever since the 14th.  He doesn't seem to care that the holiday is long since gone. 

Here are our little love bugs.  This was after a joyschool lesson I did on lightning bugs.  I love Eliot's face here. 

February began with Anthony gone for a week, and ended with Anthony gone for a week.  I know it could be much worse, but we're still hoping he doesn't have another trip for a while. 

During his first trip, we were lucky to have a visit from cousin James who just moved back to Michigan.  It was nice to have some fresh energy for the boys.  James ran around in circles for at least 20 minutes at a time playing "dinosaur tag" with Ira.  And ever since, Ira will occasional say things like, "Mom, I think you should stop being you and start being James."  

 We've had a healthy amount of snow lately.  Fortunately the electricity only went out for a few seconds at a time. 

And yes, those are Ira's shoes on Eliot. 

Ira helping Mom shovel. 

Ira likes to spray the snow different colors.  This particular day he chose yellow and I was too lazy to explain  to him why this was a disgusting choice.

The major highlight of February was a visit from Anthony's parents and youngest brother Mckay.  

I can't believe how few pictures we took while they were here, especially with the amount of playing we did.  We got a tour of the GM building in Detroit, got the Rouge Ford Factory Tour, went to the Henry Ford Museum, the Children's Hands On Museum, and ate some amazing (not too spicey) Ethiopian food in Ann Arbor.  

They were also able to help us reface our old kitchen cabinets to put in the laundry room.  

Let me rephrase that.  By "help," I mean to say they did all of it.  Mckay and Valine did the refacing, while, Paul, Ant and Mckay hung the cabinets.  I was usually playing with the kids, or taking a nap or something.  

Here are the laundry room results. 

 

Before

During

After

 I'm pretty pumped.  This is the first room in the house that we've "finished," probably because it's tiny and requires no real furniture.  We've prioritized working on the house with the most functional places first (kitchen, laundry room, closets) even if those places aren't really ever seen by anyone but us.  My Mom always says "Beauty follows function."  And bringing order spaces like this feels sooo beautiful to me. 

 Ant was rapidly trying to assemble stuff before he left on his trip to Connecticut.  But while he was gone, I was able to assemble one of these, 

and this, 

and this.  

Yep, I was pretty proud of myself.  It's not easy assembling a bed with a 3 year old "helping" you and a baby crawling all over you trying to eat the screws.  But now Ira finally has a real bed, and Eliot can graduate from the pack-n-play to the crib.  It's kind of a sweet bed.  In a year or so, we can flip it over to make it into a bunk bed for when the boys start sharing a room.

Ira did very well with the transition from 5 adults to 2 kids, to 1 adult to 2 kids last week.  He was pretty demanding and whiny when the Quinns were here...I think still recovering from his cold.  But last week he decided to be a helper and was generally very cooperative.  He even finally took initiative in the potty arena. He's been "potty trained" for a year, but last week he decided he wanted to do it all: light, t.p. flush, pants pulling, hand washing...it's a really involved process when you break it down!  And he's got it all down pretty well. Woohoo!

Eliot is a doll.  He's usually so mellow I'm afraid he gets neglected sometimes.  He's definitely improving with eating solids the past few days which is awesome.  He's also started biting people for fun.  Not so awesome. 

Anthony has mastered Valentine's day.  He surprised me with a baby sitter so we could go out to dinner and had chocolates and flowers ready for me.  :)  We were also able to get some cheep tickets with some friends to go to a Pistons (Detroit's Basketball team) game.  Fun stuff.  

Alright, bedtime.  Peace out all!