TGIF!

It has been a long, colddddd, week and I am so thankful it is Friday! We don't have a super packed weekend which is great. Tonight we are going to go watch Fireproof (a movie) at church (provided our sitter still wants to come over (Grandma) who is, along with the rest of us, sick with colds.) It is supposed to be a great movie about marriage. And it's free! One of my friends from college has also been going to LifeHouse and she and her Mom are going to go too.

I guess it's supposed to be warming up today (going to 35, and 41 tomorrow!) but I am not feeling it as I sit here with my coffee! (Selfless Mother that I am I have the space heater oscillating where the kids are playing, and not near the computer.)

Ryan is becoming a toddler, it's official! He is learning where things go. I put his mittens on (why I even do this, I don't know. I feel like a better Mother if I at least try. That way when an elderly woman stops me and chastizes me for the baby not having mittens on I can tell her it was his choice.) Anyways, he takes them off with his teeth and puts them back into the designated mitten/hat draw in the coat closet. Yesterday he brought Alex her coat and her princess tiara and I just saw him take Alex's Nutrigrain bar wrapper and put it into the trash. He now has 12 teeth and is working on the cuspids (which are by far the worst ones in my experience.) I thought Alex teethed quickly (she did) but Ryan has surpassed that. The 3 babies I know that are around his age only have 2 teeth on the bottom! After these cuspids hopefully we will have a break and then only have the 2 yr molars. YEAH BABY!

Alex got Candy-Land and another game called LadyBugs for Christmas so we have been playing a lot of games, it is a ton of fun! She is very good and them and of course usually beats us. She is starting to get back into wanting to color/draw/trace letters/do art at the kitchen table instead of playing with toys. (This website has a ton of tracing activities even a section where you can print out a page with their name to trace. http://www.printactivities.com/Tracing.html)

We are in the 2nd semester of MOPS which is going great! (I am the MOPS Hospitality person.) Last week we learned Self Defense from a local teacher which was a lot of fun! I will serve on the MOPS Steering Team next year in a different position. It will be nice to switch it up and not have to worry about the kitchen/clean up so much! Another leader and I are in the midst of planning a Valentines Dinner Party and I have a luncheon I have to start planning as well!

Nik has been working his tail off. After Christmas he thankfully got a nice break from both jobs and was home for quite a while, but is back at it full force! He's driving an in town route this week, which is a nice change I think (the route he has driven since starting is rural.) It's a hard job...especially in the cold, but Nik has always been a very hard worker.

So there is an update from us! We are all ready for nice spring weather. As you all know it has been a long haul for us illness-wise. Cold after cold and antibiotics for the kids when the colds have not gone away. With this one the kids were nice enough to bring the germs home, apparently not really *get* the cold (oh my, do you think they finally have built up some resistance???) but Nik, my Mom and I all have it!