Photo dump update

Hello world.

So it's been a while.

I'm working on Quinton's 11 month update. 

And then I realized it's been a while since I've blogged about what we've been up to.

The thing is, I'm pooped.  I mean really really really tired. 

Charlie went out of town for a week, and I had to do everything by myself.  I was well aware of how much he does for us here at home, but it hit me super hard this time.... probably because everyone was sick while he was gone.  UGH!  Anyway, he was in Boston for work and he had to be there during that huge storm so that was kind of stressful by itself.  

I kept us busy, kept the house somewhat maintained and took care of two sick girlies and one croupy little baby boy.  Thankfully the trip that was supposed to take him back to Boston tomorrow for another full week, got pushed back to the end of March... so I have some time to heal ha ha ha.  

So anyway, a few of these pictures are from that week and some are from this last week.  I don't know if I will ever blog about our week without Charlie, trying to just push it from my mind instead of reliving it ha ha.  But I will talk a lot about Quinton's struggles that week in his 11 month update.  

Again, these are all from instagram but thought I'd add some story to them. 

Big girl has been going to kindergarten for 100 days now.  They had a big day celebrating and did all kinds of 100's theme fun.  She brought home this silly crown and was very proud of her 100 days smarter milestone.  She's oh so stinking close to finishing her skills book for class.  The last word she was struggling with on the last page is finally mastered (I think) and she just needs to be tested on it... which would make her hopefully the 7th or 8th kiddo in her class of 22 to finish.  I'm really hoping she gets tested on Monday! I'm so proud and impressed with the strides she's made in learning to read, it's so awesome to listen to her.  

This pretty girl.  So her new obsession has been "Elsa Braids" which is just a fancy name for a certain way I braid her hair.  And it's basically the ONLY way she will wear her hair.  Every. Single. Day.  Then out of the blue last week she let me do "Minnie ears" in her hair.  And I loved it oh so much.  She just looks so sweet, and it reminded me of her itty bitty days when this was the only way I was allowed to do her hair, ha ha ha.  

While daddy was gone, we were invited to go to Adam's birthday dinner at Red Robin on his actual birthday.  Grandma Debra was sick too, so she kindly offered to stay home with Quinton so that I could take the girls to dinner.  It was an awesome much needed outing for the three of us and we so enjoyed ourselves! The next day we got to join everyone at Pinz for a bowling party for Adam.  The girls loved it! We had to take off after eating instead of playing games because we needed to get home for baths and then load back up into the car with a movie so we could go pick up Charlie at the airport. 

While croupy, Quinton wouldn't sleep much, he always fell asleep in his car seat but then the second we pulled into the garage he'd wake up and would refuse to go back to sleep in his crib.  So one morning after dropping Natalia off at school we drove around for a little bit because he had of course fallen asleep.   My car was filthy so we made the trek out to Larry Miller and got our free car wash coupon and then stopped at the car wash.  Quinton slept the whole time!  Lydia hates how loud the car wash is so I unbuckled her and had her come sit on my lap.  Then it wasn't so scary for her.  

Natalia's school did their class pictures last week, so we had to spiffy up her hair a bit.  I just think she is so very pretty and I wanted to get pictures to commemorate the day.

I've seen this all over Pinterest.  Natalia's school has a no candy valentine policy, and I was trying to come up with something fun for the kiddos.  I came across this and thought at first I would make them for her whole class.  We have a large bucket of broken crayons, easy peasy right?  Nope.  It took some work to break them up smaller and melt/cool them... plus I don't think we have enough crayons and I don't want to buy a box of perfect new crayons only to chop them up.  So anyway, I found another fun idea for the Valentines but then decided I still wanted to give making heart crayons a shot, so we made some the other day and the girls were super excited to try them out. 

A couple of months ago my dad brought over a thumb drive full of my things my Grandma Merrill had written about her life thus far.  From her childhood on up, it's been really fun and interesting to read basically her life story.  In one section she starts talking about the omelette demos my mom/aunts/grandma used to do.  They would basically take eggs and the fixings, plus little portable stoves and pans and go wherever they were booked to cook for people.  I have vivid memories of going with my mom to some of these demos and one memory in particular of them doing it at my elementary school one morning for the teachers.  She just took me to school early and i was hanging out in the library and my teacher came and grabbed me and put me to work helping set up the classroom for the day ha ha.  Anyway, I'm not usually a big egg eater (horrible considering that I come from a family of egg farmers ha ha) but lately I've been loving ham and cheese omelettes.  Funniest thing about this is that it is my favorite thing to order at the hospital when I am there having babies.  The first time I had it after having Natalia it was the first thing I got to eat in hours and it was the most amazing food I'd ever eaten ha ha.  So since then I've always ordered it while staying there and I've never been disappointed.  I always order it at breakfast restaurants and always compare it to the ones at the hospital.  Anyway, lately my ones at home are pretty comparable.  =) 

Grandma Debra's sister Sharon sent these amazingly soft and cute shawls for the kiddos.  They are seriously so stinking cute, I can't believe it.  She made them for each of them and it was seriously the sweetest gesture!

The begining of the sickness here at the Hodgepodge house, right before Charlie left for Boston.  I kept Natalia home from school that Friday because she sounded so awful.  We set up camp in the living room with the fire going so it was nice and toasty there. 

After what seems like FOREVER, the girls finally leveled up in swimming lessons.  Natalia's problem was more that she was just bored and wouldn't listen... once she focused and showed her teacher she could actually do the skills she was ready pretty quickly.  Lydia has always worked hard and listened, and some new smaller kiddos joined her class, so the teacher decided to move her up.  I think if she had stayed in her level 3 class she would have been held back a little by the other kiddos lack of skills.  Anyway, technically level four is supposed to be for four year olds and up, but she needed the challenge.  Thankfully even at the new lesson time on Saturdays the girls both have the same teachers they had before.  So the teachers really know their skill levels and how to push them.  They have been doing so awesome in these new levels and I couldn't be more proud.  Hopefully with the high teacher turn around  they won't lose these teachers any time soon.  (one reason I still don't really care for this place, but for now we are still here)

Last but not least.  We decorated for Valentines day.  Just using the same old stuff I've had for about six something years now, we just spread it around.  I also added a little new tradition where we fill out hearts of our reasons for loving the people in the family and we tape them up on the window.  It's about half full now, we've been slacking a little, but the girls love doing it.  Tonight  Charlie and I will go out to Melting Pot and a movie to celebrate our Valentines together.  Then next weekend on Valentines we'll do something fun as a family.  I will pull out my fun heart dishes and we'll have all sorts of heart themed food.   I made one of those no sew fleece blankets for Oliver for his birthday and then decided to get fleece for each of the kids to do one for them as their Valentines present.  In the past we've done matching jammies, but I'm honestly a little burnt out on it and didn't want to try to match Quinton to the girls.  Thought the blankets would be a nice fun substitute.  I got Lydia's made last night, one down two more to go.