All Caught Up

Well after this post I will be all caught up!

I feel like I have typed that into so many posts over the last year.  I went back and looked at my post history.  For a really long time, back when we lived in Redmond, I consistently wrote a post every single week.  Back then it was fun! because I could write about what I had been learning each week, what we had done, and document the cute little things my kiddos say.  When I am playing catch-up with the blog it isn't fun at all, its like a chore! :(  Ever since we moved to Issaquah I have not done very well, and that was a little over a year ago.  But I am going to keep trying to document my little family's milestones and baby steps as we go, even if they are a bit late.

My parents and little sister Riley came to visit us on a Tuesday night.  My brother Carl is on the varsity basketball team for the Richland Bombers and they made it to State Championships.  My parents came saying they would leave Wednesday afternoon if Carl's team lost that morning.  Well, they won!  And so my parents ended up staying for the rest of the week, leaving Saturday afternoon.  I felt so bad because it poured all week long and we really were stuck in the house with not much else to do but drive down to Tacoma every day to watch the games.

I had a good laugh about my dad's height and his "comfortable" seating arrangement and I had to document it.  My dad is 6' 7.5" and likes to brag he is taller than Michael Jordan (6'6").  

I took the kids to the first basketball game on Wednesday morning but didn't end up going to the rest of the games.  The kids really had a hard time, especially Tommy with the noisy band and the screaming going on.  He just isn't used to it.  I finally cracked out the iPads so that I could at least watch the game a little but it was to loud for them to hear the sound so that didn't help much.  Tommy was convinced that basketball is called soccer and kept telling us we were watching a soccer game.  I kind of feel like a failure as a mother to a little boy who doesn't know his sports right!  Haha, oh well.  I have time. 

I felt bad that that was the only time I got to see Carl but it was still fun!

On the way home we stopped at the Bass Pro Shop (my dad loves those stores) and inside was this amazing bowling alley and a fun restaurant we all ate lunch at.  Tommy was very eager to climb onto the alligator.

We did eat lots of yummy food while my family was in town.  I wish we had taken a picture of the sleeping arrangements.  We have a two bedroom apartment so there were two blow up mattresses and a sleeping pad in our front room all week.  It made for some tight quarters, add that to the pouring rain, and I think we all were a little stir crazy but I had a lot of fun.  I love getting to see my family and we haven't made it out to see them in a few months so I was glad for the company.

My kids loved getting to play with my parents a lot too.  

That is a picture of the car mat I made for Tommy for Christmas that still isn't done yet.  I am just adding a building here and there when I feel like it.  It's taking a while but that's okay.  I still remember playing on the one my grandma made for her kids so I just tell myself it will last that long and I feel less pressure.  I'll post a lot more pictures of it when it is done.  I just really love hand sewing.  Little things to do with my hands while I can sit on the couch and relax after a long day of being a mom makes me still feel productive while I watch a show. :)

So, Logan and I are pretty strict with our budget.  We kind of have to be because we are trying to save up for a house as well as business promotion things Logan is working on.  But we are each allotted a small amount each month to spend it on whatever we want.  Well, Logan saved up his allowance for several months, combined it with some birthday money he got, and voila! he got a Nintendo Switch.  He was so excited that he got one on opening day by pure luck (they were out and on his way out the door a lady was holding one that was just returned).  When he walked through the door Elsy saw him holding the new Zelda game and said, "Is that Breath of the Wild!?"  I couldn't believe she even knew what it was called.  She was just as excited as he was.

When he walked through the door Elsy saw him holding the new Zelda game and said, "Is that Breath of the Wild!?"  I couldn't believe she even knew what it was called.  She was just as excited as he was.  Both my kids absolutely love Zelda (Tommy was even Link for Halloween).  Two Christmas' ago Logan bought the kids little stuffed Link and Zelda dolls and the last couple weeks they have been played with almost non-stop.  Just tonight the kids asked Logan to fight with them and be Ganandorf while they were Link and Zelda with swards.  Call us Zelda geeks but I don't care.  Its the only game my husband is really into and I think that is a blessing.  I really don't care for the gory games and if Logan liked those we would most certainly have a conflict.  So I am grateful it is a fun game that the kids can still participate with.

Logan caught me playing it while the kids were in the tub.  I guess I am a Zelda fan, too. ;)  I had to try it out!  Elsy knows all about everything in the game and it was hilarious for me to hear her tell me to make sure and "put your Shika slate over there" and "make sure you get those wings and eyeballs from the bat you just killed".

We celebrated National Pancake Day at IHOP with the kids.  We were lucky there was zero line and we got our food right away.  I was glad because I was starving!

One of Tommy's favorite foods is pancakes and "fafulls" and he has had them for lunch and dinner as well at times.  I told Logan to grab a cash donation as he was running out the door (they ask for a donation to a charity if you come).  I felt so bad when, as we were leaving, he pulled out two dollars.  We had a good laugh.  I guess we don't carry as much cash as we used to, everything is on cards!  In fact, the other day at the store Elsy was asking me what a check was.  I haven't had a checkbook since before she was born probably!

Logan has been liking his new job a lot.  He sent me this picture of his new work space.  It is so much different from his last!  Before he had an office all to himself and now he shares all this space with all his coworkers.  I think that is so fun.  He was also invited to go play basketball on Friday mornings with some of the people he works with and I think he really enjoyed that.  He is still getting used to how things are run there and is working up to some projects but I think it is going to be a good fit for us.

I was in charge of Joy School for the letter V.  I am sad that I didn't get a picture of the volcano I made out of a bowl in a paper bag, red food coloring, vinegar, and baking soda.  The kids loved that part.  I also showed them some videos of volcanoes erupting and talked about Mt. Rainier.  Some of the kids seemed a little nervous after that and I felt a little bad.  Elsy especially, because we had just watched Moana for the first time that weekend and the poor girl was petrified by... well the whole thing.

I personally loved Moana and got so many amazing messages out of it for myself.  Maybe I stretched a few things to mean what I wanted them to mean but I just loved it!  Maybe I will write some of those down sometime.  But today I am dead set on getting all caught up!

For the past two weeks there has been construction right outside our window on the road below.  This has been Tommy's spot for those few weeks.  He will line up all his digger cars along the window sill and watch all the diggers and dump trucks as they do their thing.  He will play all his toys on the sill all morning.  Every morning at 8am the diggers drive down the hill to the spot.  We always seem to be eating breakfast and Tommy will hear the sound of the big wheels and engines and say, "Diggers!  Be wite back, K Mom?" and he jumps down and watches them.  Of course he doesn't come right back and usually says hes done eating when I try to coax him back.

So I saved up some money and then we got some money from Great Grandma Merkley and Great Grandpa and Ma Atkin for Tommy's birthday so I got him a late birthday gift - a balance bike.  I took him to the store and he picked out this BB8 helmet and wouldn't let me take it off his head.

The bike showed up in the mail and the kids were so excited.  They were helping to much so Logan assigned them each a pillow to sit on.

I couldn't get over how old he looked as he rode around the house!  He is just getting so big! and old!  and big!!  Ugh, my baby. :(

After 21 days of straight rain and gloom we finally got a sunny day.  I wasn't quite ready for the day yet so the kids got to go out on our little porch to ride their bikes and watch the diggers some more.  Don't you love all their gear for such a small little space?  They are to fun.

Well, after that day ended we got tons and tons more rain.  One day Logan called everyone to the window and they all gaped at a blue patch of sky as the clouds quickly blew over.  You know it is getting bad outside when at breakfast your two year old son tells you he misses the sunshine.  This last Sunday was another rare sunny day and we were all so excited.  I found Tommy at the window (the diggers were all gone for the weekend) and I asked him what he was doing.  He "wook at da sun, Mom."  My heart just melts at how sweet and sensitive this little guy can be.  He is the politest little boy I know, and I honestly can't remember trying to teach that to him.  He says please and thank you for everything under the sun.  And lately if he hears me sigh or something he runs over and says, "Wuts wrong, Mom?"  And I will say like, "Oh, nothing." and he will say in his deep little voice, "Okay, Mom-mee"  He says "Okay" to everything.  And he also has learned the word "favorite".  He likes to tell me "Favit song!" or "Favit book" or "Favit shirt."  What a sweet guy.

Soooooo, uh.... we love us our Tillamook cheese.

The only way to enjoy the rain.

My sister sent us a picture of her kids digging for worms.  I thought that would be easy since all the worms have been on the sidewalk trying not to drown lately so we went out and caught four.

We brought them in and the kids loved it.  I told them we saved them from the birds eating them.  They promptly went and got their toy birds they have and had them meet the worms.  Yikes.  But they didn't eat them so that was good I guess.  We had lunch with a dish full of worms as our centerpiece.  Hmmm.  They sat on the counter for a few days and poor Logan just thought it was the grossest thing.  I finally returned them to nature on a day that wasn't so rainy.

We have started to experience a true Seattle spring these last few days.  The spring time here will have days where it is pouring in the morning and sunny in the afternoon and then pouring again by bed time.  We just try to enjoy the sun while we can.  I bought the kids little gardening shovels and a little rake and let them play in the old dirt from last year that was still in my pots (I may or may not have pulled the rotten stems out and threw them off the balcony right before letting them do so...).  Elsy is such a priss!  When she came in from playing in the dirt for quite a while I told her to wash her hands and she said, "Why?".  She showed me her hands and they hadn't even touched a speck of dirt.  Oh brother.  Just her shovel had.  We are working on that little girl.

She is such a talkative and dramatic thing.  While she was mortified of Maui, the coconut guys, the crab, and the volcano, and yes even the manta ray, she still loves the songs.  She has been singing, "See the line where the sky meets the see, it CALLLLS ME!!" so much.  But I don't mind, because, like I said, I love everything about that movie.  I tried to talk her out of going to Joy School today and stay with me and Tommy.  I just miss her sometimes and I really don't think she needs to be out of our house that often.  But she insisted she would go and that I wouldn't miss her because I had Tommy.  I am already looking forward to the summer so I can have her all to myself again.  I have been considering only sending her to one day of Joy School lately just for that reason.  But she is like me and loves to be with her friends and where things are happening.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!  We all wore our Merkley reunion shirts and matched.  When Logan got home from work he was wearing Navy blue so we all chased him around the apartment back and forth back and forth until he finally was able to put on his green shirt.  We all had a good laugh.

My friend Alyssa had some people over for an Irish dinner.  I don't think this dish is Irish, but I did die it green!  Logan and I have been watching the Great British Baking Competition and they had just made trifle and I wanted to try my hand at it.  It was not as pretty as the ones from the show but it was pretty delicious.  (And I didn't tell people until after they ate it that that bowl used to be a fish bowl for our beta fish, Odinson. Hehe!)

We had another sunny day (can you tell they are finally getting more frequent!?) and we decided to use the sun for an outdoor outing and went to Snoqualmie Falls... which was a mistake because all around the falls it was freezing and the mist was so heavy and the falls were just gushing because of the month of rain and we didn't really get to enjoy the sun at all haha! But it was still fun and Tommy was very interested in the waterfall.

Look at that guy!  Boy he is sweet.

And today there was a patch of sunshine while Elsy was at Joy School so my friend Mary, who was hosting today, sent this picture of the kids.  I am glad I am not the only one who frantically rushes outside when the sun comes out.  She herded all the kids out for a walk. (And look at that sky, but we still count it as a sunny day here!)

Huray for catching up!  I can't beleive I just posted a picture of something that actually happened TODAY!  Wooo hooo!!  Onward and upward.

February

This post is all about February... and the two days before it!  Because, you see I can't skip my little Tommy boy's birthday!!

Tommy turned two!  I just can't get enough of this kids cheeks... but I think sometimes he has enough of me kissing them. Hehe! 

Our friend from the ward invited us to her son's birthday party on the same day as Tommy's birthday.  We went to Let's Bounce and had a lot of fun playing with a bunch of our little friends.  Tommy actually just wanted to ride on a motorcycle the whole time but that was fine.  If he ever left it to jump and someone else took it he sure let them know he was not okay with that... "At's MINE!" is one of his little phrases he is super good at saying. ;)

Cache, Tommy, Nora, and Elsy.

Elsy's favorite part was the big, long, tall slide.  Both of my kids tried their hardest to hide from me in the deepest recess of one of the bounce maze's.  Ugh, that was a sweaty ordeal trying to climb in there and drag them both out while they each tried to run back as I grabbed the other.

Tommy just loves doughnuts and since I can't throw away food that isn't eaten... especially when it is a cake!  I decided I had better not bake a whole cake for just the four of us.  Because really I would just eat it all day every day for the next few days.  So we opted for some Krispy Kremes.  They were having a staff meeting but let us stay anyway so we had the place to ourselves.  Tommy doesn't look to happy in this picture... and to be honest I don't think he was.  I just re-watched the video of us singing to him and he just gives this sigh in the middle of the song, as if he is saying, "Guys, come on just let me blow on the fire and eat already."

Here he is, MUCH happier.  We opened presents there.  He got some big legos and two airplanes from Planes Fire and Rescue, Dusty Crophopper and Blazin' Blade.  He still loves them both a month later so I would say they were successful gifts.

This little boy just melts my heart all the time.  I am so grateful to have him in our little family.  Every night when I ask him about his day I ask if he had a good or a bad day and he says, "Goooud."  And then I ask him what he did and he says, "Cars"  And then when I ask him what song he wants me to sing he says, "Cars" again because he wants me to sing the theme song from the Cars movie... which really is just a tune with no words haha! 

He has started to tell me I have "peeey hair" (pretty hair) and he likes to get his fingers stuck in it, it makes him laugh.  Last night as I sang to him (I always try to sing another song too!) he looked up at me as I was rocking him and he said so softly, "Pee-ey song".  I had song "Mother, Tell Me the Stories."  Because he is constantly moving I have a hard time trying to get him to hold still enough to feel the Spirit when I teach him about Jesus.  But sometimes I get through to him.  I have found if I lay on the floor and have him sit on my tummy and I bounce him a little while I talk to him then we have much longer conversations and I can actually try and teach him a little bit.

Everyone always comments on how he has such a deep little voice and it is so true.  The cashier at Fred Meyer the other day said she thought he would someday be a famous opera singer.  I laughed because I wouldn't exactly go that far.  Tommy does not like to sing the way Elsy does, although every now and then he will sing, "A suuuh-bee!  a suuuuuh-bee!" (A Sun-beam!  A Sun-beam!) in his deep little voice.  But if I ever chime in he stops.  He is very picky about his songs and if I start to ever sing a song he doesn't like he is sure to tell me about it, "Ot dat un!" (Not that one!)  Some of my favorite words he says are, "A beebot" (a robot), "A-num" (amen), "Look, Mom!" (he always pauses after he says look and then says Mom a little bit later as if he has to think about how to connect the two words.  He has been making longer sentences in the last two weeks and it is so fun to hear the words he puts together.) "Fafull" (Waffle), "Fuff-Fuff!" (Ruff-ruff, like a dog bark).  We have wondered a bit if he will have a little bit of a lisp.  He always asks, "Ut at guy doin?" (What's that guy doin'?) and whenever I answer one of his questions he says, "Okay, Mommy."

Both of my kids can make their mouths into a straight line like that ^^ and I think it is so cute.

Here is the 2-year check up picture!  He did such a good job but I just absolutely hate shot time, probably as much as they do.  He is a big, healthy boy!  One thing I don't like about my new doctor's office is they don't print out a sheet with all his information on it like my last office did.  So, since this post is a month overdue I can't remember how much he weighed or how tall he was.  The doctor did say he had a really good imagination for his age and was surprisingly really good at imaginative play. (When she came in Tommy and Elsy were playing with some animal figurines.)  I thought it was interesting that she pointed that out, because I feel like he really is good at that.  He will just play on his own for a long time, whereas Elsy didn't learn that skill until she got older.

And here is that straight line smile again that I just can't get enough of.  They get it from their dad.

At the beginning of February my friend Ashlea and I put on a baby shower for our friend Kimberly.  We decided to make it woodland themed, which was great because Tommy's side of the room has that theme and I already had some decor.  Elsy helped me to make some chocolate kiss acorns out of Nutter-butters, kisses, and mini chocolate chips.  They turned out so cute and I am sad I didn't take a close up of one... but really, it wouldn't have been as cute as that weird, cheesy smile of Elsy's.

Ashlea hosted the shower at her house (which is such a cute home!)  I made a little garland of animal prints I found for free online.

I also made a tassel garland we hung above the fireplace out of yarn.  I brought all my plants and little animal figurines from Tommy's room.  As well as an antler from my living room, and that metal bear head I got for Christmas.

I went to my friend Alyssa's baby shower about a month before this one and we played a super fun game where everyone made a baby replica of what they thought the baby would look like.  I wish I had taken a picture of everyone's creative play dough sculptures.  They were too cute.

Ashlea had a drink dispenser with the bottom filled with pine cones.  We also had a little place to write down your address so that Kimberly would have all the addresses for later when she wrote thank-you cards.

And the food was super delicious.  (On that middle platter Alshea put some Swiss ham and cheese rolls that were oh so good!)  There were meatballs, chips and salsa, veggies, fruit and fruit dip, a bundt cake, cookie bars, and chocolate acorns. :P  It was so much fun!  I wish I had gotten a picture of Kimberly, she is the most fashionable pregnant lady! ;)

One other game we played was matching baby animal names to their adult animal names and that was pretty fun as well.

I was super busy those few days because I was also in charge of Joy School that week.  I was pretty pleased with myself because I didn't even think about what to do for the letter R until the day after the baby shower and I just used some leftover twigs from the night before and grated some blue crayons and we made raindrops to hang in our windows out of wax paper and melted crayon.  I guess I didn't realize that it would rain for like 3 weeks straight and we didn't need fake ones to remind us about the rain. Bleh.

I just finished reading The Magnolia Story and I loved it.  What an inspiring and uplifting read.

My friend's husband looked up the weather of the last months.  According to him, since October there have only been three days that were 'good enough weather to go outside days'.  I cannot stand the rain any more!  Whenever there is a break in the rain this is what we do... bundle up and run outside for a quick walk around the apartment complex before the next bout of rain begins.

Saturday snacks at Panera again!

And then, just like that, literally overnight, it snowed a boat load!  I have never seen it snow here more than a little dusting that melted after a few hours.  I couldn't believe it.  We were completely unprepared.  Luckily our neighbor let us borrow their sled and Logan made some nifty snow pants for the kids out of garbage bags (haha!!)  They held up surprisingly well!  We drove over to Mountain View Park in Klahanie and had a great time sliding down a little hill they have there.

This girl loved it but she was very worried about getting to much snow on her hands.  

Tommy and Logan made snowman!  I was blown away with how much snow we got over the next two weeks.  There was a lot of ice on the roads and we had to help someone who got stuck at the exit of our complex lot so nobody else could get out.  Thankfully we had snow tires on our tires already (for when we travel to my parents house) so we didn't have any troubles.

This little man just loves his cheese.  I left for a split second and came back to find some big bites out of our Costco size cheese block!

Elsy just loves joy school and is learning so much.  I am proud of how intelligent she is and how well she remembers the things she hears.

Elsy also loves to do my hair.  And take pictures, she took this picture of me haha!

She is also all girl and loves to get into my jewelry box, play dress up, and help me cook.  During nap time she always comes to me and says, "Lets bake something!"

The other day she sat next to me squeezing and squishing my upper arm around.  Finally she said, "Mom, your arm feels like a jelly ball!"  Oh dear.  But she redeemed herself a few days later when she told me, "Mommy you look lovely.  Lovely is another kind of word for beautiful!"

When I started teaching piano lessons at the beginning of the school year I sat and thought about what I should do with the money.  I really wanted to just keep it for me and use it to buy more decorations for my house or new clothes or something like that.  But then I thought about Logan and how he doesn't get to spend all the money he makes on those kinds of things, it has a bigger purpose and that is providing for our family.  I thought about using it so that Elsy could go to a dance class or something.  But the more I thought about it, the more I started realizing I should spend the money on getting our food storage and emergency preparedness items together.  I realized that one day I might look at an item on my wall and wish I had spent the money on something to get me through a harder time.  I realized, there were no replacements and no more important things than fulfilling hunger and having life sustaining foods available in a time of emergency.  So I have not spent a single bit of my piano money on anything except buying food storage and emergency backpacks, lighting, etc.  I bought a hand crank grain mill that I am excited to try out.  This month I have been focusing on getting our backpacks finished. (Today I have some sweet knives coming in the mail for Logan and my backpacks!)  It feels so good to know that we have all these items.... candles, flashlights, clothing, guns and ammo, baking essentials, water purifiers, etc. on hand at a moments notice.  

I really do have a testimony of that scripture, "If ye are prepared ye shall not fear." (D&C 38:30).  For all who know me, they know I tend to worry more than is necessary.  And I used to feel so overwhelmed with the thought of something bad happening to our family.  I was praying about it and this scripture came to mind.  I realized if I was prepared, I had no need to fear because I would be ready.  Ready for anything!  So I started putting together our emergency plans.  I started building up a store of the foods we eat all the time.  I am gathering the necessities for a year supply.  We are definitely not done, but I have felt as I gather every needful thing, that I feel more and more peace.  I feel more and more secure.  I feel the Spirit tell me that I am doing what the prophet has asked us to do, and I know that my family will be blessed because of the sacrifice we have made to get this all put together.  We are becoming self reliant, and nothing is as empowering as that!

On to other news, Logan got a new job! It is funny how it all happened.  Logan has a good group of friends who all work at a company called Fresh Consulting.  They have been trying to get him to come over and work there and run the video department for a couple of years now but we have always turned it down because we just have loved the flexibility that Construx has given him.  He can work from home two days a week, go in whenever he wants, leave whenever he wants, we had tons of vacation days, and we just had a really nice, family centered lifestyle.  But it was hard for him there because he could basically go to work and not talk to anyone, all day long!  Logan is a very creative person and very innovative and that job just wasn't that way for him.  All he did was shoot eLearning videos and classes that he would edit together.  Super simple, quite a bit boring.  Well about a year and a half ago Fresh came knocking on our door and we were so close to taking the job but at the last second we pulled out and decided that Construx fit our needs better and allowed Logan to work on his side jobs and business ideas because Construx has very little in ways of non-compete rules whereas Fresh does.

In mid January, Jeff Dance - the CEO of Fresh - asked to have lunch with Logan again.  Logan knew he didn't want to go to Fresh but he says he will never say no to a conversation (and I also think a free lunch haha) so he went and talked to him.  And all the sudden, things just started feeling right this time.  This was the third time Fresh had come knocking on our door and suddenly things just started falling into place and becoming that perfect next step in Logan's career.  It was so strange, and it must have been inspired, how we went from "Oh a free lunch, but we already know we don't want to go over there" to "Actually going to Fresh makes a lot of sense now."  So Logan decided to take the job!  He was able to get some wiggle room in the non-compete contract he signed which was a big deal, as well as a good pay raise (because we knew Logan was going to be working way more hours and we wanted to make it worth it for us).



We were so grateful for Construx and everything Logan learned while working there.  We went through some crazy stuff while he worked there and learned a ton.  Looking at the path that Logan's career has taken it is interesting to see how the Lord has guided us to learn what we needed to learn in ways that we needed to learn them.  Everything at the company was set up perfect for us to learn those lessons and we are so grateful.  I took the kids to visit the office one last time.  They just loved getting to go there and eat all the Cheetos out of the pantry they had there and all the juice from the fridge.  Logan already is missing his beautiful view from his 13th story office.  However, his new office at Fresh is closer to home and actually looks out at the Seattle temple so that is fun.  It is just on the other side of I-90 from the temple.

Last lunch with Daddy!

Logan stepping through the door on his last day of work at Construx!  He was actually super sick that week.  I think maybe the stress of switching jobs maybe set him over the edge.  The kids both had colds and Logan got it so so bad!

He actually ended up going into the urgent care twice.  His throat was visibly swollen and made it hard for him to breath.  He also had fevers.  It is currently mid March and just 3 days ago Logan said he thought his throat was finally no longer hurting him anymore.  The doctor finally gave him some antibiotics that seemed to help a little but the sore throat still would come back in waves.

He slept all day for a week and a half.  We finally asked some good friends from the ward to come and give him a blessing two days before his first day at Fresh.  That also seemed to help.  That first week of working at Fresh was really hard for him because he was still really sick and the stress of starting a new job and not knowing what you are doing.  But it has all gotten better since then!

This poor girl was sick also, and Tommy had a terrible nose thing going on for like two weeks straight.  Just this week I realized Elsy hasn't been coughing as much (as much... she is still coughing) and that has been a miracle for us.  Both last winter and this winter she has had coughs through all the winter months.  Sometimes I wonder if she will EVER not be coughing :(

We celebrated Valentine's Day with our traditional crepe breakfast.  I made everyone a heart valentine and the kids loved them... as well as all the strawberries and M&Ms.

These two kiddos are just the best of friends.  I found them talking on the couch like this and I thought it was the sweetest thing.

On Saturdays, because Logan is home, Elsy and I like to go out shopping during Tommy's nap.  We always end up at Home Goods to look around.  We went on the hunt for some birthday gifts for Logan.

Elsy is always ready to leave before I am, which is saying something because I am not the best shopper around.  I let her curl up in the pillows at Target while I looked through frames for a painting I wanted to do for Logan for his birthday.

Another sensory bin!  This one was just some aqua beads from Amazon.  You just soak them in water and they grow into jelly balls and the kids really loved them.

We had cozy time again on a Saturday night.  We watched Storks.  My mom used to braid our hair like this on Saturday nights so it would be easier to do our hair in the morning so I decided to try it.  It turned out poofy and fun.

And let me just say, don't waste your time watching Storks.  The entire time I watched it I just thought it was dumb.  I have not been very impressed with Dreamworks movies.  There was zero character development, the plot had no underlying messages, that I could tell, besides just trying to come up with something that would be entertaining for a kid? and it just had tons of holes in the plot. And Logan and I are so into the art of storytelling I just found the whole thing severely lacking in, well, everything.  Also, I wasn't to happy with the end scene, where storks are dropping off babies to lots of different couples, including same gender couples.  I really struggled with that because I started to get the feels because everyone knows that having a baby (or receiving one through adoption) is such a miracle and you can't help but feel that feeling when someone gets a baby.  And the music was building as all these people were getting babies and suddenly they were giving babies to same gender couples and so there is this conflict (at least for us with the beliefs we have) where you are having all the feels and then suddenly there is something that isn't quite right, but the feels were just there so all the sudden it is confusing because your feeling something and then your brain says, "Whoa, somethings not right?" but the music keeps going and people are all getting babies and yeah.  I just could see how that could be totally confusing for a kid.  So I was super disappointed, and actually felt sick to my stomach, by the time the credits were rolling.  I just felt so betrayed by an alleged kids movie, that it was bringing so much into my home that I was not asking for or wanting.  Anyway. Super bummed and now I want Logan to start a media production company that specializes in movies for kids that carry the same standards that we have in our belief system.  Its a work in progress ;)

But until then, Logan can keep working at Fresh! Haha!  Here he is on his first day, about to head out!  He is so handsome.

And here are those best buddies again.

And again.  I took them to go see a little skit of The Tortoise and the Hare at our library and they loved it.... okay Elsy did, Tommy was oh so bored.

And then, if I haven't gotten political enough with my comments on Storks haha, Logan got this comment on his DaVinci Resolve tutorial he made.  We both had a super good laugh about it.  In the tutorial he uses footage from my deer hunt he filmed in 2015 to show ways of editing lighting and what not.  I apologized to Logan for turning him into an inhumane person and we just had a good laugh.

In my opinion, hunting is the most humane way of consuming meat there is.  The animal is able to fulfill it's measure in the place it was supposed to and the way it was supposed to, and then it's life is also ended in the way it was supposed to to.  "For, behold, the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and that which cometh of the earth, is ordained for the use of man for food and for raiment, and that he might have in abundance." (D&C 49:19)

There are those buddies again, making puddles on the floor.... uh, I mean, helping with the dishes.

So, Logan fell asleep during nap time on the couch and I woke up Elsy and put her next to him but she fell back asleep and neither of them woke up for another half hour.  And I had no idea Elsy was a spooner. Haha!

We also got to celebrate Logan's birthday as well!  He is 29!  (And let me just say we are so scared for 30!)  To celebrate we made a yummy breakfast and then my friend babysat while he and I went out to get Sushi for the first time.  We went to Blue C Sushie and it was alright but we only got a couple plates to share before we ditched and went next door to The Cheesecake Factory for some cheesecake and an entree to share.  We ate so much food but we had so much fun.  

We have been struggling for thing to do on the Sabbath lately because we have early church and no family in town to visit.  And the weather has been terrible so we can't go on Sunday walks.  I decided to start trying new recipes to make as a family.  We have only done it once but it was a lot of fun.  WE made homemade pretzels!  The kids love them but Logan and I weren't very big fans since I didn't have the giant salt so they tasted a little bland.  We also have been watching a lot of family home videos and nature videos as well.

Well that is February.!  WE are learning and growing each new day and trying to become the family God wants us to be.  Each day brings a new challenge and we are trying to stay on our toes!