February goodness!

February goodness, slightly out of order

You might notice a theme this month... Helena has been asking me to take pictures of her constantly. She loves doing her hair, picking out her own clothes (and she has better fashion sense than I do!), and posing for pictures.

Valentine's Day family dinner

I made a lovely blue cheese crusted steak, green beans with balsamic butter, salt baked potatoes with roasted garlic butter, and raspberry pretzel Jello salad. Dessert wasn't that great, but we had plenty of candy, chocolate covered strawberries from the in-laws, and yummy cupcakes from The Sweet Tooth Fairy to make up for it!

Unseasonably warm weather!

We always have a thaw around this time of year, but it normally only lasts a week or so. Basically all of February (and a lot of the second half of January!) was much warmer and sunnier than normal. We spent lots of days playing outside!

Valentine's Day prep

We made little cards that said "You're a star in my eyes, valentine!" and glued glow in the dark stars to them for the girls' class valentines. Juno was super excited to be giving valentines to her friends in her preschool class! 

We also had fun making valentines to send to Grandma Lisa and Grandpa K and also to tape up on our front door.

First grade program

The first graders put on a patriotic program complete with lots of songs and a slideshow!

Family field trip to Clark Planetarium

We went to the planetarium one Saturday and had fun exploring all of the free exhibits. Even if you're not going to a movie, there is so much to see there! Tempe and Helena really loved the cloud machine.

My favorite part is the big giant ball machine. I don't know what it's called, but I could watch it all day! I wish I had one at my house.

See how easily the moon landing could have been faked?? I mean, doesn't it look like Juno is really there?!

On Mars...

Art group

I started a neighborhood art group in the fall to get out of paying for an after school activity for my kids and it's been a huge success! It's a co-op, so each mom hosts on a rotating schedule. We even had to split into two groups because so many little girls in the neighborhood wanted to participate! The two groups meet separately every week except for the last week of the month, when two moms host and the groups combine so the girls can still all be together sometimes. It's been so fun! When I hosted, we painted sugar cookies with sweetened condensed milk + food coloring to make stained glass sugar cookies. Yummy and artistic!

Lovely new dresses

Helena and Tempe both needed new Sunday dresses, so we headed off to DI one Saturday to find some. Yes, I buy their Sunday dresses at the DI! They grow so fast that I have a hard time shelling out a ton of money for a dress they will only wear once every few weeks and grow out of quickly. Helena loooooooves her dress.

Giant cat

Look at our giant cat, Autumn. He is just an all around big cat. He's not really fat, just large. Plus he has long hair, so he looks even bigger than he really is. He loves Jason so much and always curls up on his lap when Jason is trying to read!