iphone7: The “this is why I don’t wait 3 weeks to do a summary” Summary

Faith, let’s be honest, has been extra hard the last few weeks. Lots of crying (especially for nice people who are trying to give me a break by taking her) and NEVER wanting to be put down. In her spare time she’s been…

rolling over (no picture, sorry),

setting the fashion trends for the under 1 set (thanks to Lauren for the super darling Ugg knockoffs):

learning to attack her frog with her hands:

having her first taste of sherbet:

and not nursing:

(this is what looks up at me 75% of the time I’m trying to feed Faith. I took this during a “nursing” session last week.)

Despite hosting preschool at our house this week:

(puddle jumping during our Rain Day)

Seth has been completely confounding us with his ridiculous speech. We have serious worries about his ability to understand English.

By way of example:

Emma, frustrated with his taking of her stuff, tries to explain: “Seth please don’t take my stuff without asking. You ruin it!”

Seth: “Emma. I was in Mommy’s tummy last day. Did you know that?”

He is the king of taking 3 different sentence fragments and combining them like they actually make sense: “I was going 3 blocks with Daddy in his bed I am eating french toast.”

Maybe his brain cells are freezing when he’s doing this:

(yeah, it’s 7 am, frost covering the net, and there is snow on the ground, but Seth’s happily jumping on the trampoline)

Jane, despite her overflowing cuteness, only got one (?!) picture taken of her these last few weeks.

This is Jane, watching from the stairs during preschool. She’s got a long, fatiguing, lingering flu and so she was quarantined upstairs while non-family members were present. I caught her sneaking a peek. It’s a bummer when she’s sick because she’s my big preschool helper (awesome at singing the clean-up song, passing out water: “You get what you get and you don’t throw a fit, and assumes the yard duty, or, as she corrected me: “It supe-oh-vise-oh, Mom!” role during free play time.)

Gabe, as usual, was Super-Scouter.

He got his Wolf badge, in half of a year, and while fighting the flu last week, completed enough electives to earn him 2 arrow points. He and his dad, completed this beauty

for annual the Blue and Gold Cub Cake competition. It earned him the Most Stately award.

Continuing in his father’s goal-achieving footsteps, when he heard in Primary that he could check off a Faith in God/Religious knot achievement, he and Emma put together this Family Home Evening re-enacting the Creation. Days 4 and 2 seen here:

Emma was the birthday queen this month. The day of her birthday:

we had coffee cake for breakfast,

the Daines over for donut cake and presents.

For her “friend birthday party” we had an ALMOST sleepover, that included

a Self-and-Mallory decorated birthday cake:

a pizza dinner:

dance dance revolution:

decorated pillow cases:

and breakfast at 10:30 pm, right before everyone went home (ebleskivers, of course):

Ryan and I were slightly surprised at the yelling, wrestling, and spazziness of a bunch of 10 year old girls:

but everyone seemed to have fun.

I successfully completed the 14 Days of Valentines (the relief I feel when that’s over…!)by taking the kids to lunch one at a time. I forgot to take a picture with Jane and Seth at the restaurant, so we did a hold out at home (why do they look so crazy?):

Emma got Pizza Hut

and Gabe wanted Quiznos

I also came up with the best costume idea EVER, for the Albrecht’s First Friday party. The theme was Rockers and we were…

ZZ Top. (We made the beards out of yarn and no one could tell who we were). Go here to see a group picture a la We Are the World, if you want.

I also completely stressed out the whole month over being in charge of the above-mentioned Blue and Gold banquet. (When you’ve attended a total of 6 Cub Pack meetings in your life, you are a little overwhelmed at having to put on the most important one of the year.) It went, of course, completely fine. Here’s a re-enactment of me giving out an award to a deserving Cub Scout:

I ask you: Is there anything sexier than a Cub Scout shirt??

Ryan has lost a crazy amount of weight and finally shaved the beard. He looks about 27, again. Which is probably why he didn’t mind using the Sharpen feature on all of our photos, while I was disturbed by all the forehead wrinkles that kept popping out of my forehead. (I have continued to lose weight as well, with the Biggest Loser contest, but, man, it’s slow…16 lbs in two months. I know, I know, it’s the healthy way to do it, but tell that to all the sad and lonely size 8 jeans in my closet.)

He had a good birthday, he says, despite his wife’s laziness. We did some shopping for things he’d been wanting and then took all the kids to Melt-the-Pot (as Jane calls it) for a birthday dinner. We dressed them all up, left (a screaming) Faith at home and gave long manners lectures as we drove. They were well behaved and we had a fun night.

I realized that Ryan didn’t get a birthday cake, so I whipped up some lemon meringue pie, at about 9 pm that night. Here’s me, giving him his only birthday serenade:

For Valentines Day, (here’re most of the kids in their V-day attire)

we took the kids to the local museum. It was Victorian day and they had fun playing parlor games, making fans and Seth got to dance with the Victorian dancers. He kept asking Ryan “are those weal princesses, Dad?”