First half of Feburary

I used to just try to "get through" the winter months. Now I feel like I've been finding ways to help us enjoy and celebrate even small things- and now these winter months are fun! Parenting is so much easier March-October when we spend hours outside and playing in the dirt and at the park. I've realized it takes just a little extra effort, and we don't mind this time of year at all! Our life lately has felt kind of weirdly busy- in a good way- so here are just a few things I've documented this month!

First of all, this is just Hudson with his elephant, whom he finally named, Ellie. Ellie mostly lives in Hudson's bed, but occasionally joins us for breakfast.  

 This is Chase one morning before preschool. His teacher warned me that further into the year the novelty of preschool would wear off and he wouldn't be nearly as excited to go. This is not the case. He is still totally psyched to go every single time!

 We had an early Valentine's day celebration! Since I'm going out of town over the actual Valentines Day we moved our date up a week. My mom sweetly agreed to take the boys overnight and we decided to just have a quiet night at home. We made a fancy dinner together and just enjoyed being home together and had a very relaxing evening. We loved it- and we missed our boys. One night away from them is just perfect for us right now. The boys loved their sleepover with Nana. She took them to play at McDonalds (and for dinner- Hudson loved the dinner, Chase loved the play structure) and then back to her house for a movie and sleepover. The boys were already asking two nights later when they could sleepover at Nana's again.

 We did Valentine's sugar cookies. Chase's little friend Freddy was over playing so he decorated with us. The boys had a great time and only made a small mess and ate spoonfuls of frosting and sprinkles. Chase informed me with the first cookie he frosted that he really wanted to decorate it special for Aunt Heidi. I explained that we probably couldn't mail it to her- and he responded with "Well mom, you could put it in a baggie in the freezer and then take it on the airplane with you on Friday to give to Aunt Heidi!" (I was leaving a week later for our girls trip). Good thinking Chase! That's exactly what I did.

 We spent a fun Friday morning at the Hill Airforce Base Museum with Drew and Ryder Bennett. Chase and Ryder always have a great time together and they ran around the whole place and admired every aircraft. I think they are really impressive too, and every time we go I remind myself that we need to go more often. It's so cool, close and FREE!

We continued with our around the world tour with a night learning about France. To our surprise, Chase already knew where France was on the map, I showed the boys the famous landmarks in France, learned a few French words and then ate crepes. The boys loved crepes. Chase even remarked that he liked crepes a lot better than German food.

Then we celebrated Chinese New Year the next week! It was fun prepping for this night! We made little flags (hanging from the Valentine's garland in the picture below) and I made Chinese food for dinner (Americanized Chinese food). I made lemon chicken and ham fried rice and we had fortune cookies. My mom joined us for dinner and brought some picture books about China for the boys. We all wore red and we gave the boys each a red envelope with a little money in it (I think it was like 38 cents). I looked up some words in Chinese to show the boys what the Chinese characters looked like. And then the next night (after eating the leftovers) we watched Mulan.  It was all super fun! I know there is SO much more the boys could be learning about these places and cultures- but with them being so little I'm just trying to give them a taste of what is out there. I love seeing Chase's view of the world broaden as he's starting to understand that there is so much beyond Layton, Utah.

 And then Valentines Day! I was gone for the actual day, so we celebrated a little early.

The night before I realized I had totally forgotten to get them Valentines- so I quickly ran out and found these cute books for them. They were really happy when they came down for breakfast and found them.

 Chase made this Valentine for us at preschool and I love it so much, it will be on the fridge for awhile! They had a class Valentine's party and were instructed to bring Valentines to hand out to their classmates. They've really been working on writing their own names so his teacher reminded us that this was a good opportunity to practice that and to start early since it takes awhile for little ones. Well, we forgot. So the night before (while I was out doing the boys Valentine's shopping) Ben sat down with Chase to sign his Valentines. Apparently after just a few Chase got really antsy and unfocused, and when Ben reminded him to keep going he responded with "This is just SO STRESSFUL!" I love the way Chase signs his name these days with his cute backwards S.

 That night we pulled out the chocolate fountain! The boys thought it was the best thing in the whole world! We had marshmallows, graham crackers, strawberries and bananas to dip and the boys really went to town! It was messy, and we quickly stripped Hudson down to just his underwear so his jammies wouldn't become a casualty. It was a really fun way to celebrate and will probably become a tradition!