most o' February

Fun fact: in my recollection, February was a haze of dismal weather, too much screen time, surviving on veggie straws and gogurt, runny noses, and general malaise. I know, sounds like January, right? I thought screen-free January and #janasjollyjanuary would take care of all that dreadfulness, but it turns out it just bumped it back a month, whoops! The good news is that once I started scrolling through February pictures, I remembered that we actually DID leave the house a few times, hooray!

The Drapers nailed the 'bravery' characteristic required for all Cub Scout leaders and did some fire-starting with the boys. Clyde was obviously thrilled.

It makes sense that Clyde was super well-behaved with the fire (minus the torch-making...) because he was one of two students chosen from Miss Hill's class for embodying responsibility! Way awesome, especially since he'd been selected the month before for teamwork.Yay Clyde!

I had no desire to take Jack and a sniffling Carma to the assembly, so Grandpa came over to watch them:

And as usual he took darling pictures of them so I could see how much fun they had :).

The first weekend of February brought a quick road trip down to Utah for Clyde and Will and me for cousin Lily's baptism and HOLY MOLY traveling with only two kids that are older is amazing. They were champs and read and ate and got themselves in and out of the car when we stopped for food and were all-around delightful traveling companions. We stayed in Lehi with Quinner and his family and there was lots of fun cousin wrestling that night when we got in!

Things got a little hectic the next morning when we went to leave and discovered I had run out of gas, whoops! Pro tip: if you're super low on gas, don't park on a hill and then warm-up your car for 15 minutes haha. The good news is that Quinn and Eden are as generous as they are good-looking and promptly handed me the keys to their recently acquired Honda Pilot (fancy!!) and we were on the road, with an estimated arrival time of three minutes before the baptism! (spoiler alert: we got there by 9:50am. #winning)

Such a sweet experience to be there to support Lily - here's the '08 bunch in birth order: Lily, Will, Bri.

And here's some of the fun afterwards! Melissa and Kevin hosted everyone for delicious croissant sandwiches and some pretty epic Nerf battles... and selfies... took place downstairs.

And then I kidnapped Courtney and Mallory to drive back down to Quinner's with me to exchange vehicles. Somehow they got wrangled into babysitting while Quinn and I wandered around Walmart for a gas can and Super Bowl snacks and a quick brotherly intervention about me still nursing Carma hahahaha.

I also made them to go to Target with me once we were back in the ol' minivan. Love those girls! And Quinn and Eden - thanks again a million times for the loaner vehicle! You are awesome!

We got home late Saturday night, just in time for Super Bowl Sunday! I legit don't remember any details but here are some cute pictures of Carma's scowl:

For some forgotten reason I missed girls' night (probably why February stands out as so sad in my mind!!) but these long-suffering, indulgent-of-my-weirdness girls still took a picture and texted to me because they are The Best. I'm sure their smiles are forced though, since they couldn't possibly have laughed much without me there ;).

Random trivia: red is not my favorite color. Or even in like my top five. Or probably ten. So we had to get creative to find the boys red shirts to wear for their Valentine's Day parties at school - not coordinating was clearly not an option (speaking of people that put up with my weirdness).

Carma got to sport the adorable Snoopy V-day shirt that has been passed through all the boys - I feel like she loved it, her facial expression notwithstanding. She also loved her church outfit for Valentine's Day, again despite the apparently crying haha.

 In Sunday School we talked about reaching out to people in love and made Valentines for some class members. Brother Izatt and Bishop Swenson both stopped in to make Valentines for their wives so we were obviously happy to facilitate that ;).

After church we celebrated Valentine's Day by piling on top of one another a la layered jello. Does anyone else do this? Like all the time? Just us? Usually it's just me and the kids, this time we coerced Chuck into it and I'm pretty sure he loved it. On the inside.

 President's Day found us hanging out with Grandpa in Boise! First we hit up Municipal Park for a while:

and then we wandered around the outside portion of the MK Nature Center. I hadn't been there in a lot of years, and it was super fun! The kids were big fans.

 

This picture kills me - Carma loves Grandpa! Thanks for the fun adventure, Dad!!

February 15th lives in infamy as my first day at Kmart way back when and thus the day I was introduced to a super hot co-worker.

Sadly, Chuck had to work on our 'meetiversary' (I'm almost afraid to google it and see if that's a real thing. I feel like it is.) so I texted him and got a very gushy reply...

We went through a pretty intense Memory phase, my favorite aspect of which was Chuck teaching the boys to chant "Clear the board! Clear the board!" when someone was on a roll with only a few matches left. Jack was particularly obsessed with the game, sooo cute:

Random cute pictures of Carma including her first ponytail, her first clothing-related vandalism, commandeering her doll's stroller, her ridiculously adorable pout, and discovering a deep love for pomegranates.

I've decided instead of hassling my kids about journal writing, I'll just keep their spelling homework because the sentences they come up with are hilarious and usually true. Here are some from Will:

So I joined ward choir a few months ago because Raquel is the director and I would basically do anything for her, and it's honesty been way fun and I haven't been asked to leave yet so I consider that a success. Clyde started coming with me in February which I love - here's a mid-practice selfie to commemorate the occasion.

Cute pictures of Carma Junie on a visit to Sister Sherman's house; our usual MO was to show up and let Carma run around and entertain Betty and then quickly roll out at the first sign of a toddler tantrum :).

Couple more pictures from Jack's superhero dance class at Idaho Rhythm - his teacher was so patient with little sisters (aka Carma and Myla) sneaking in at the end of class.

One day Carma and Will did some Sunday afternoon piano dueting. Super cute. Funny story: when I was typing this I wrote Jack instead of Will. And Will is literally sitting next to me. So he corrected me, assuring me that he can recognize pictures of himself anywhere hahahaha.

Random shot of Carma encouraging me to get out of bed.

One night my mom and her good good friend Lyn (recently returned from a mission to California) got together for a concert and I insisted they take a picture because, you know, it's me :).

Literacy Night at Park Ridge! Such a fun tradition there. Chuck and the boys headed up and found a cute mouse and her cookie (Miss Overcast), the dad from 'Unfortunately, the Milk' (Mr. Eilers), and Piglet, Christopher Robin, and Tigger (Miss Weaver, Miss Hill, and Mrs. Aevermann)... and some cupcakes ;).

And we made good use of our Leap Day by hanging out a bit with Uncle Cody over at Grandma Pam's park - always a good time!

So it turns out February was pretty cool - especially when you factor in the fun camping trip we took that necessitates its own post because there are a million sledding pictures...