The best thing that happened this month was when Tenny said, “I love you mommy. I will never stop loving you.” ❤️
- Murphy is talking more each day. My favorite new word is “why” because she uses it correctly and it’s always after we say she can’t have something.
- Tennyson is learning to read and write! At school he has been struggling with not being a nuisance during nap time. We asked the teachers if there was a quiet activity he could do during nap time and they have been giving him private reading/writing lessons. They are so proud of how smart he is and how quickly he learns. He also loves the lessons .
- We thought about taking Murphy’s binky away a couple months ago but Lucas suggested we let her keep using it so it would be easier for our moms when they come watch the kids. The grandmas were grateful we waited. After the Thailand trip the binky is going away.
- We bought a workbook (kind of thing the teachers use for reading/writing lessons) from Costco and we have done them a few times at home with Tenny. He wrote his name by himself for the first time! He can tell you how to spell his name easy but this was the first time he wrote it with a pen by himself.
- Tennyson’s current favorite movies are the 2 Frozen movies and he often saids, “I love Elsa” or “I’m building an Elsa castle.” Murphy is starting to be interested in tv more but for the most part she doesn’t care about it yet.
- We’ve been doing more train track and marble track (Duplo blocks) building lately. The marble tracks are SO fun to make and we love doing it with the kids. Murphy is getting better and better at putting them together.
- Tenny got his second ever professional hair cut.
- We took the kids to ride bikes at a school nearby. Murphy prefers to drag her bike rather than ride it.
- We went to Ross recently to play with the toys and Tenny picked out a purse he liked. He asked if he could take it home and I told him we would carry it around the store and think about it. The next time we went to a store that had purses, Tenny picked one out, brought it over to me and said, “I’m going to carry this around the store and think about it.”
- We brought flowers to school on Valentine’s Day for the teachers. Tenny loves giving the teachers presents 🙂
- We watched the Super Bowl at the Brown’s house and the kids loved dancing along to the halftime show
- Maria is the teacher who we fell in love with first because she was so loving towards the kids and helped them feel comfortable at school in the beginning when it was new. She is the teacher over the middle age group so she is technically not a direct teacher of either Tenny or Murphy but we still love her. Also, she brings Murphy hand-me-down clothes from her daughter all the time. Unfortunately for us (great for her!) she left the school to go back to college. We miss her so much but we’re also so happy for her.
- We had a new babysitter come over for a few hours on President’s Day when the kid’s school was closed. One of the first things Tenny told her (Piper) was, “Murphy hurts me sometimes.” Ha because Murphy (1.5 yrs old) loves to wrestle and Tenny (3.5 yrs old) does not.
- We hired Alex to paint the grout in our kitchen/living area and it looks so much better than before! I painted the grout in the downstairs bathroom over a year ago and we’ve been planning to paint the rest of the tile grout downstairs but we never got to it because it is so time consuming and can’t be done with kids around. Worth every penny to pay someone else to do it. It makes the house look cleaner and less outdated because the tiles are highlighted less now.
- Lucas and 3 of his coworkers got vasectomies together on a Friday morning and spent the weekend relaxing/recovering at a beach house. Someone at work made t-shirts for them to wear to their appointment. They called their group the “vasectabuddies”. This was the weekend between two weeks Lucas was out for work so my mom flew up to help me with the kids for the weekend.
- Lucas did a “Super activation” week at Precoa and it was a big success! Lots of work leading up to it and a big pay off with how well the event went.
- Murphy got an ear infection again. It seems like someone in the house is sick at least once a week.
- Lucas’ parents announced they are getting a divorce. It has been really hard on the kids (Lucas and his brothers). Lucas’ work schedule has been so busy prepping for the upcoming incentive trip he hasn’t really had time to think about his family situation.
- Lucas’ birthday lands during our Thailand trip and Tenny loves celebrating birthdays so he and I did a birthday surprise for dad a few days before the trip. We went to the dollar store and got a balloon, a table cloth, a card, and some birthday bags to put the clothes in that we got at Marshall’s. We asked dad to stay upstairs until we told him to come down. We decorated the kitchen table then asked him to come downstairs when it was ready. Tenny loved it and Lucas had no idea it was coming 🙂 Win, win!
- Murphy fell asleep in Lucas’ arms while we were walking through the mall. She has never done this before and Tenny has never done that before so we thought it was funny. She slept for 30+ min!
- On the 21st Portland got move snow in one night (10-12”) than in the past 80 years. I was a second to highest snow record in recorded history. So… school was closed and getting to/from the airport was tricky. Tenny LOVES playing in the snow so he had a great time. It was just tricky for Lucas and me to finish packing and work a full day with the kids home the day before we left for Thailand.
- After 24 hours of several delayed or canceled flights it felt like a miracle that my mom’s flight to Portland was on time. We asked our friend Taylor to stay at our house for the night and Lucas and I rode the MAX train to the airport to pick up my mom. The 3 of us shared 1 king bed at a hotel near the airport. Then bright and early we all went to the airport. Lucas and me to fly to Thailand and my mom to take the MAX train back to our house. Since the roads were so icy Lucas and I walked to the bottom of our neighborhood’s hill with our luggage and our friend met us at the bottom and drove us to the transit center to catch the Max. Then they picked up my mom from the MAX the next morning and brought her to the bottom of the hill. And our neighbor with a snow friendly SUV picked my mom up at the bottom of the hill and brought her to the house. Lucas and I slipped several times on our walk down the hill so we didn’t want anyone else to have to do it. It felt crazy trying to make this plan and we’re in shock that it all worked out.
Photo dump from home
Photo dump from school
