The Everyday February (2019)

February 2019 was a cold month. And a tiring one, especially for Gabe: 

As mentioned in my January post, it was really hard for him to transition from taking a nap everyday, so if he ever stopped moving, he'd just fall asleep. 

But don't worry, he spent plenty of time being awake in February. 

 



He caused a lot of chaos around here when he was awake. Somehow, he even got into some paint and painted our window trim.

It's just a good thing that Gabe is so cute. That's what saves him!


As I mentioned, February was cold and snowy. This last winter brought us more snow than our other years living here combined!

Thankfully, our awesome neighbor helped us keep our sidewalks clear. Thanks Scott!!!

 

In February, I needed some new content, so I got a couple in my ward to pose for an engagement session down at the Marina in the snow. The session turned out great, but check out the sunset that night. 

Gabe likes being in the middle of everything, including Brian's daily physical therapy:

At some point in late February or early January, we decided to sneakily plan a trip to Disneyland. We didn't want to tell our kids about it; we just wanted to go to the airport, fly to LA, and then show up at Disneyland. It was really, really hard keeping it secret, especially after these lanyards showed up at our house from the place we booked our hotel and tickets through: 

We had to use a code to talk about it, so we stole a line from the TV show Psych. One of the characters' favorite pick-up lines is: "Have you heard about Pluto? That's messed up." So, whenever we wanted to say how excited we were for Disneyland but were in front of the kids, we'd ask, "Have you heard about Pluto? That's messed up."

Rachel got a pretty good shiner in February. I can't remember what happened, but I can't help but feel like one of her brothers was involved. 

We also moved her into her own room again (other new furniture item from that fated delivery). She loves her girly, girly room. 

Rachel also got her first loose tooth in February, so I HAD to take her final official baby-teeth smile portrait session:

She didn't end up losing her tooth until Easter, if I remember right.

We went to church in February, as per the norm. This magna-doodle helps keep three kids from completely losing it during sacrament meeting, and occasionally their parents as well. I wish I could remember who gets the credit for this drawing.

Also, here's proof that Michael was alive and with us during the month of February.

Gabe likes to help out. It's his favorite thing. If only he was better at it, but we're trying really hard to let him help so that by the time he is big enough, he'll still want to. We can hope, right?

Oh Gabe! You're determined to never give us a reason to change our minds about having another baby!

He even figured out how to play the player on the piano. It's still a bit of a stretch to reach those pedals. 

Rachel vacuumed the floors. It was because she (a) made a mess and needed to clean it up (b) wanted to earn money or other reward or (c) was trying to repent from a round of bad behavior. I think it was option B, but I can't remember. 

We took the kids to see the new Mary Poppins, and we loved it. On the way home, we found out that Ethan and Erika got engaged, to which Rachel breathlessly and happily sighed, "Finally!" 

We found this on Michael's journal and had to laugh:

We had people over and they played the Switch with us. (I can't tell if this is Danny or one of Brian's scouts.)

Every now and again, Rachel requests fun things for her hair or else she lets me try something new. I don't know which one this was, but we obviously thought it deserved its own picture.

Rachel needed headphones for school. We got her ones with ears because we're cool. 

We taught our kids UNO--or maybe it was Old Maid.

We enjoyed hugs from Uncle Ethan.

We flexed, and we grew.

We snuggled.

We redecorated now that this is the BOYS room.

Fun fact: We didn't put that airplane in either of these places.

We ate food, because, well, food!

We smiled, we posed

We laughed, we cried, we finally started breathing better, and most of all, we loved.