February Goes So Fast!

Finally we are going to post some photos! We don't have many for February (I don't know where the month went!), but I'll try to recap the month without them.

THE TWINNY COUSINS

Elsie and I loved hanging out with my sister Sonna's daughter Ruthie while we were in Phoenix helping my brother. She is such a pistol. Super cute and bright, and lots of smiles and enthusiasm. What a gal! The girls loved chasing each other around and learning new "seek and destory" tricks from each other. They especially loved discovering those twirly cell-phone car chargers... BOIIIING!

LOVE LAUNDRY, BUT TIRED OF THE KITCHEN

We've moved Elsie into her own room/closet, and moved her up to the barstools (her highchair is attached to the barstool), so this is the view I have for the majority of my days. Feeding the kids. Over and over. Then clean up the kitchen. Then feed the kids. Then clean the kitchen. Then clean the kitchen a few more times. Then feed the kids. Luckily Jonah got the kids 10 goldfish while I was out of town to keep me company (that's their "tank" in the foreground). Elsie does sure love being up with the big people, though. She'll actually sit there and eat for about 40 minutes if you keep giving her stuff to eat!


VALENTINE'S DAY
Well, I accidentally took Ana and Cam with me to the dollar store the day before Cam's birthday (yes, that one way back in January), and Ana and Cam picked out their Valentines. Then, they spent the next three weeks figuring out who would get which Valentine and attaching fruit snacks to each of them (and trying so hard to not eat the fruit snacks themselves) and organizing them in different piles, etc. I was SO relieved when the big heart day finally came and went so I could get those stupid Valentines out of the house! Ana almost missed Valentine's day on account of her sickness, but luckily that was one of the two days that week she was able to make it to school, even though she had to come home that afternoon and go striaght to bed. She even missed our traditional "Breakfast for Dinner" Valentine's Family Date at Home.

ELSIE
Elsie has grown up so much in the last month since her birthday! She's getting standing up and scooching along furniture, uses a few more words (like dog, cat, duck, and hot (in addition to mama, dad, gak! (Cam), and nanana (Ana))), and actually drinks out of a sippy cup by herself without throwing it on the floor every two minutes. She EVEN figured out how to drink out of a bottle! Yea! It only took a year! She also is getting more aware of the purpose of different objects, and will try to put hats on her head, puts the phone to her ear, tries to do her hair with the brush, tries to put her clothes on, etc. Its all very exciting. The bad thing is that she is seriously into EVERYTHING. Here she is eating the business cards again, after she dragged the empty milk jug around the house.
Elsie has also finally learned to go down the stairs! What a huge relief. It took just a couple tries and then she got the hang of it. For a few days, she'd sit at the top and try so hard to remember how to get started, and we'd have to throw one of her legs over the edge and turn her backwards, but now she remembers all by herself. She was so proud of herself and wanted to show everyone in the family. I still keep the gate up just so I can confine her to this half of the house, but I sure am glad to not have that constant worry all the time.
The BIG SALE
The local Home Show started on the 16th, and Ana was able to fulfil her lifelong (I'm not kidding) dream of having a successful sale! She and I went and bought waterbottles the night before and she and Jonah made cookies the day of. She made a fancy sign and made some lemonade and got all set up to market to the crazy thousands of people that drove by our house this week (there's always at least one house in the neighborhood being showcased in the Home Show... luckily it wasn't across the street again this year!). It was truly hilarious for us to watch, and truly some of the happiest days of Ana's life. She tried different tactics, like dressing "cuter" (she looked like an orphan for the first few hours...see photo), making a cleaner and easier to read sign, getting her friends to come help (and paying them 50 cents an hour, or they could take their payment in cookies and lemonade), jumping in front of cars as they drove by (we put a stop to that eventually), doing cheerleader moves, you name it. She also added V-8 (or 8V as she'd call it) and licorice to the menu. She worked about 4-5 hours on Saturday, 2-3 hours on Monday (no school because it was Prez Day), and the following Saturday about 3-4 hours, and after paying Jonah and I for supplies and for making the cookies, and after paying tithing and her employees, she came away with $160!!!! She just was so so happy! She'd count her money every night, and make sure her sign was all ready for the next day. She's so excited, because she wants to take horse riding lessons, but I told her she'd have to pay for them, so she figures she can afford four whole horseriding lessons now. She is over the moon, as Jonah's mom would say.

CAM and HEAF
I've finally been able to get Cam and Heath together to play this month. Heath lives in the next neighborhood over, and is the son of old family friends from Las Vegas who fortunately moved here! He is the nicest, most polite boy and he turned four in November, so they are so close in age. He LOVES playing superheros, so he pretends he's Superman and Cam pretends he's a Ninja Turtle (of course). They were worried about it the other day, and asked me to write a book for them about how Ninja Turtles and Spiderman are good friends and they fight together and save the world ("because they are helpers" as Heath told me). I wrote the book, but they accidently sprayed it with the Power Wheels Jeep's fireman hose, so I can't show you it to you. They can play together for 5-6 hours without a single problem. Man, what a great relief to have HEath (or Heaf, as Cam calls him) around. Plus, he and Cam talk on the phone every other day for about 30 minutes. Hilarious.

So, Jonah's big project is wrapping up, and we're so relieved and sad. No more paychecks. But, now we can finish all the nagging little projects on this house and put it on the market. Hooray and sad. Its such a great house and I don't think we'll ever get to live in another one like it. Oh well. Time to move on.

Still trying to get over this darn sickness, but I'm feeling much better. Thanks for all your prayers and well wishes!