A February Update

Oh, blogging energy, where have you gone?!
I really have no excuses, though I'm sure I could readily invent some. Instead, I think I'll just give a quick update of how our month has gone. If I were blogging, for REAL, I think most of these newsy bits could probably deserve their own posts. But... apparently I'm not really blogging. Sigh. So anyway...

-- Top news: Yet another camera bit the dust this month. I'm proud to say we had this one for nearly three years this time, I think. We're not even sure what happened to it. Brian was using it in the garage one Saturday to take pics of some stuff to post on craigslist. Then it was gone for a few days. And then, somebody found it in the road and kindly put it on our front porch one evening, all banged up and not working. Bummer. Hmm... Natalie??

-- More top news: (Actually maybe this should be the first top news?) We have a FIVE year old in the house! Yep, Spencer celebrated his birthday last Friday. Three cheers for our Spencer boy! He hit the jackpot this year with THREE parties in one day -- a party at his preschool class, a kids' party in the afternoon, and a birthday dinner party with both sets of grandparents and cousins. I think he felt pretty special, and we sure think he is!

-- A Valentine's getaway... That's right, folks! Brian and I actually had a little ESCAPE this year for Valentine's, and it was wonderful! Brian's parents watch the kids for us for two nights, and we hotwired a nice hotel in downtown Boise. We spent Valentine's evening with Mark and Dalana, then went off to our romantic room. Then we had an entire Friday day all to ourselves, working out forEVER, roaming around Boise, visiting museums, going in little "don't touch" shops that we'd be terrified to take the kids in, and we even went to a video/seminar at BSU about linguists and dying languages. (I know, that last bit probably sounds a bit dry to some of you, but we thoroughly enjoyed having some intellectual conversations about things that really interest the linguist I married. :)

-- We got our YMCA membership back. Yippee!! We've been meaning to do it since we moved back, but I guess we were both kinda waiting until we got really SERIOUS about this whole lets-be-healthy-people thing, ya know? So, now we're trying it again. And it's fun. But I don't really like cycling, I've decided again for the umpteenth time. And I'm officially sore from my ONE try at getting back into yoga. I will try again, maybe. Next month?

-- The snow and cold have gone! And THANK GOODNESS for that! We still get our occasional flurry and some nasty wind. But that frigid phase of ice EVERYWHERE and below-zero nights left us at the end of January. And I happily say GOOD RIDDANCE! Winter is nice and all... from inside, for a day or two, right around Christmas time. I'm ready for Spring, people, and the ground hog predicted it'd come early this year. Bring it on!!

-- Our ward at church got split. They actually took two wards and divided them to make a third. We're technically in the "new" ward, as in, we got a new bishop, a new meeting time, a new name, and everyone got released from their church assignments and callings. However, ours was actually the ward that didn't get ANY new people added to it all. They just took some of our best people (goodbye dear Shermans, Dougals, Tingeys, Cheneys, etc!!) and now we have holes to fill to make this new ward work. Brian was asked to serve as the new executive secretary to our new bishop. Any bets what my new calling will be? I'm lobbying for primary chorister, but well... we all know lobbying isn't how it works, right? :)

-- Natalie has taken to using markers. EVERYWHERE! In fact, tonight there were new marks on Samantha's sheets, in her bed! What!? This child is tricky, sneaky, stealth!! No one really ever SEES her in the act, well at least not most of the time. (There was that one time I caught her drawing a 3x4ft mural in our hallway when she thought I was napping one Sunday afternoon. She quickly tried covering it with her hands and body, threw the marker on the floor and started shouting, "Only on paper!! Only on paper!!) Let's just say, this girl knows what she's doing is wrong, and she does it anyway. I cleaned up two of Samantha's dollhouses last night that were all marked up. Brian had her help clean the couch last week. The stairs were pretty bad the week before. And the kitchen table. She even drew a mustache of sorts on herself the other night, with black, permanent marker. Any ideas? We've already tried scolding, time-outs, spanking, making her clean it up, throwing away any marker we find that she's touched, etc. If you come over, just don't judge us by our two-year-old artwork, eh?!

-- Spencer did a soccer class this month, with his cousin, Cole. And he really enjoyed it! He's now in gymnastics with a couple of friends from church. He is enjoying it, too. We've had our struggles lately with him and his many anxieties. I almost wrote a post a few weeks back, but I was afraid of over-venting, if that makes sense? He went through a couple of weeks where he was REALLY terrified of EVERYTHING. I mean, like, he was asking me to say prayers for him, for things like, "say a prayer that a toaster won't get stuck on my head.... that I won't lose any body parts... that hot lava won't come in my room and get me in the night... that I'll never see a ghost in my whole life... that I won't die, ever... that those scissors on the counter won't jump up and get me... that my eyeballs won't fall out." I'm not kidding. These are all from his actual list. Phew. He was up all night, many nights, crying and screaming and refusing to be consoled by most anything we tried to do for him. Thankfully (knock on wood!!!), the worst of it seems to have past, and he is coping better. But I still feel for him. I wish I knew what was going on in that little head of his sometimes.

-- Samantha has been doing great with her piano lessons lately. She just started learning to play chords with her left hand, and she's LOVING it! Her songs are starting to sound more like songs, to her. And it's making her excited to learn. I'm so glad... I want her to like it and to feel like she's making progress. She's also doing really well in school these days. She just won second place in first grade for an art project, and her picture is hanging on display in the first grade hallway for everyone to see. She's very please about that, as art is her favorite subject and she's felt that they don't do nearly enough art in this new school. :) She had an accident at school this week, and got her hand smashed behind the outside door. She was the door holder for her class, and someone came in and pushed it open really hard, I guess? It really smashed her hand up. She'll probably lose the first two fingernails on the right hand, poor thing. The school nurse had me come get her and bring her home for a few hours to recover. We're glad she's okay.

-- I should probably be done for now. I just wanted to at LEAST get one entry for February! And, let's give a big round of applause to welcome March! I like March... spring, rain, and birthdays for my mom and grandma. We're celebrating Grandma Eva's 90th this year!!! Big things ahead, as you can imagine. So, off I go for now...