Bone Chillin' Cold

And the adjective for this last week *drum roll please* was:

COLD!

Poor Grams has had to deal with all sorts of record setting cold temperatures this week. We're talking negative to the -teenth degree temperatures with plenty of windchill, should probably at least have a shirt on kind of cold (Oh Lucy!): 

We're talking you best wear a hat that Grams made you when you go outside or you might lose your ears kind of cold:

 We're talking sit by the heater vent and still feel cold kind of cold:

 We're talking no school because we don't want little ones to die of frost bite so you best take some silly selfies instead kind of cold: 

 We're talking your last front tooth falls out because your gums froze over kind of cold:

(OK, slight exaggeration, his tooth did not fall out because of the cold...or did it...?)

We're talking there's not much else to do beside stay inside and play obnoxious tunes on your keyboard kind of cold:

(Have I mentioned that I'm beginning to regret my decision to buy this for Steven for his birthday)

We're talking...OK, that's enough of that but suffice to say it was cold this week and that meant we stayed inside a lot and cabin fever was definitely felt at moments but somehow we kept our cool through it all :)

Can you see her cute pie teethers?

Will you be my Valentine?

Well I am relieved to say that this week was a lot less challenging than last week, mostly because Penelope decided to be better behaved. We did discover the reason for all her crankiness and sleepless nights last week though- teeth! She's got two little bottom teeth breaking through. They're quite cute, if only they weren't such a pain for all parties involved!

This week consisted of running errands (way too many trips to Walmart), haircuts(I got bangs!), Steven's actual birthday (he got a to go on a dinner date to Subway with Grandma), making primary teacher gifts ("Happy Burst Day!"), visiting teaching (Lucy threw a royal tantrum because the lady I visit taught wanted her to have her snack at the table and she DID NOT want too), and Valentine's Day festivities (I got to go into Steven's class for their Valentine's Day party and I was so impressed by how well behaved 46 first graders were!).

And here are our bazillion Valentine's Day Pictures.We did our traditional heart cookie making, decorating and eating for Valentine's Day:

We got lots of snow Valentine's Day Morning and then the rest of the day was freezing cold:

I gave each of the kids a little something for Valentine's Day because I love them so much:

Tyler got me this beautiful bouquet, along with yummy candy:

Since Tyler lost his wedding ring (for the third time) I got him 2 wedding rings. Now he has a back up ring in cases he loses one again:

For our Valentine's Day date we did a session at the Detroit Temple. The sun is pretty bright when reflecting off snow, hence major squinty eyes:

And random silliness and cuteness:

Steven's 7th Birthday Celebrations

For our kids' birthdays we used to just have big parties with all the extended family. Now that we are far away from our extended family we have to change things up. For Steven's birthday this year we decided to let him pick one activity for us to do as a family and then we'd have cake and ice cream with the neighbors. We also decided to celebrate Steven's birthday the weekend before his birthday since Tyler will be up North on his actual birthday.

The activity he picked was to go to the Michigan Science Center. That was such a great choice. It finally got us out of the house and everyone had a great time. The kids never wanted to leave any of the exhibits, we kept having to drag them onto the next ones. We got a membership so we will definitely be going back there.

Steven & Ben inside a "furnace":

Lucy helping to make roads:

Penny was actually super the content the whole time. The center had lots of lights and noises and I think that kept her entertained:

'

Grandma & Lucy crossing the "Mackinac bridge":

Oh no! My family is turning into couch potatoes!:

Lucy the Pig, Benny the Fish & Steven the Frog:

 '

I love that Ben picked up this Pineapple and then requested that I take his picture. SUCH a poser!:

In this room our shadows changed colors!:

Sunday night we had cake and ice cream with the neighbors. Steven really hasn't had much to do with "Star Wars," he hasn't even seen the movies but has seen seen LEGO movies that have Star Wars characters and for his birthday he requested a Darth Vader cake. Tyler complied and the cake turned out pretty awesome:

I told the neighbors not to bring gifts but they didn't listen. He got an awesome remote control truck from our German neighbors and some Hot Wheels and candy from our neighbors next door.

His big gift from us and Grandma and Grandpa Brady was an electronic keyboard. He was pretty happy with it, though not surprised since he had seen it in the back of the van when we bought it...

He also got a Minecraft Calendar from us and his Grandma Brady made him a Ninjago Pillow Case cover. He is one lucky kid! Here he is cutting the cake

And here is everyone pigging out! Fun times!

I'm still in shock that Steven turns 7 this week! I forget sometimes that he's not my little boy anymore. He is reading whole books, adding double digit numbers, spouting off facts about tornadoes, attending Boy Scout events, helping me with Penny, playing Video Games like a champ, drawing awesome detailed pictures and basically just being a 7 year old. One more year and this kid gets baptized. Pure craziness!

Snow, Valentines & First Foods

Well it seems 'challenging' is going to be the word to describe my February...or maybe my year. Penelope is back to her "normal" fussy self and back to sleeping like a newborn. This pathetic picture is pretty much how she looks 90% of the day:

Needless to say, I am exhausted. It is so hard to always have her fussing when I try to get things done and I have never gone through sleep deprivation like this before. My other kids were definitely not this bad (or at least for not this long) and it is taking a toll on me emotionally and physically. She is definitely reinforcing my decision to be done having children.

I am so grateful that my mom flew in Sunday to help out because with Tyler up North during all the work weeks this month and me being so crazy tired, I couldn't have survived this week without her help. Despite being sick with a cold herself, she has been a great help with the kids and they are so happy to have her here. Lucy, however, still can't get her name right and keeps calling her "Poppy":

To add to my challenges this week, we got over a foot of snow over the weekend which led to two Snow Days for Steven. I love that boy but he needs school. He starts driving his brother and sister crazy when he's home with them a lot and he starts driving me crazy too! We tried to keep busy and made snow ice cream. Only the snow melted too quickly and it was more of a slushee so we just drank it:

The kids even ventured out into the snow for a bit (by the way, that is not a hill behind them- that is all snow from our driveway):

On his second Snow Day Steven kept busy by making Valentines. He drew and colored the stars, cut them out, wrote names on them and glued on the candy. Considering he had to make 46 since he is in a combined class, it was pretty time consuming. Surprisingly though, he didn't complain:

He also made his Valentine's Box. It says "Feed Me!"

Unfortunately, when I went to put his Valentine's in it, I realized it wasn't going to be big enough for 46 Valentines. All along he had been telling me he needed to use the bigger box, well he was right. So we had to redo it:

Thankfully on Wednesday school was back in session! That made for some slightly easier days but still challenging with fussy Penelope. I thought she was so fussy because maybe she was ready for "real" food so we gave that a try:

 

She made lots of fun faces while eating but I most love the smiley pics above. I think she enjoyed the process of eating but not a whole lot of it made it into her tummy and she was just as fussy when it was all done. Since I am not really ready for the extra effort feeding her would take, I don't think I'll be giving her regular meals quite yet.