Flowers and rainbows and yarn

Hello from the department of pretty-much-all-better! Henri is still stuffy but functional and the rest remain unafflicted so we're going to declare the quarantine over. Yay! As for what we've accomplished in the past two weeks, pretty much just the normal. I got to go up to Anna's for a night and I hope I didn't bore her too badly. It was a lovely and restful time and it's always fun to be with your sister! Plus, despite moving away 9 years ago, I still remembered just fine how to get everywhere.

The favors for the Ladies Tea (the theme is "He makes everything beautiful in His time, so lots of pearls and mirrors). Only 59 more to make!

Hudson is truly in love with the sheep. He makes friends with at least one each visit and then just stands there giving nice scratches and chatting with it. 

They were not impressed with the pigs, haha. Don't blame them. 

I identified with this (very pregnant) mama; head buried in hay so she couldn't hear the clamor, and scarfing down a meal. 

Even though it was a very mild winter I kept up the tradition of buying weekly flowers from Trader Joe's. They brighten the whole house up!

Very mild winter....like, summer weather winter.

As in all the trees have budded out in February...

and my day lilies, crocuses, and daffodils are all popping out

Short sleeve weather. Crazy. 

Our neighbor's family brought us a gorgeous bouquet.

Double rainbow over the pond that lasted for about 30 minutes. 

It just lasted and lasted and lasted and stayed bright...so cool

Chasing geese and balls.

More flowers up

It's nice having musical talent in the family

Newest treat. Vegan and oh so tasty.

Also an amazing treat! I know, I'm always showing food. It's a big part of my life. Also why I'm big in real life. But anyway, these were a hit with all of us.

Park play. I find we rarely go. Used to be there at least once, often twice, a day with Henri. I think I burned out on that venture. I'd much rather be on a walk or messing about in the woods. Fortunately he's fine with that. 

Getting in his caffeine fix for the day (plus all his greens, but shhh, we don't mention that to him...).

More thrift finds, the mirror will be given a new paint job and staying with me after the Tea is over.

Last week we celebrated 100 months of marriage. Steve keeps track of stuff like that :D

Waiting for Henri at school. So glad I insisted on the sunroof feature. Hudson opens it, no matter the weather, and stands on the console so he can watch what's going on. Helps too because the teachers see his head and call Henri first.

He loves this "umbrella tree" we encounter on our walks. 

Mecca. However this was a very disappointing trip. Needles completely out of stock, staff unhelpful and loud, no great finds. I did get yarn for the sweater at a pretty decent price, so we'll be content with that for now. 

Anna! Introduced her to Red Robin's burgers. Yummmmm.

Library trip tonight. These were the returns, they must hate seeing us come in (53 kids books alone, plus whatever I had). But at least my kids are reading, right?

I kept to my self appointed restriction of no knitting other than the purple sweater, but now that it's completed I have 3 different hats, the new sweater, a kids sweater, a cowl, and a sock all cast on and going. Might need to pull out some bulky tonight because everything is a bit small and I could use some instant gratification. Hoping to get in some serious progress tomorrow during Hudson's class. And that's about it for "news" :)

And then we descended into illness again

Wowsers, it's been a year for us. I mean, we're certainly due, but it's been nice living a charmed life health-wise. Sunday after church Henri went to bed....and other than me making her get up to drink some water/change her clothes/lay on the couch instead, she didn't get up again until Tuesday evening. Poor kid was running a temp of 103 and achey and miserable. She didn't even want to read so you know it was bad. Yesterday she had spurts of energy, and then by the evening she was pretty back to normal. Fortunately she isn't missing school because it's vacation, unfortunately it's been a rotten vacation. We made up for it today by spending it completely outside (70 in February?! Lovely!). Because we've been housebound, there remains little to see around here.

Date night! The Y provided the babysitting and we partied hard. The sweater is a happy thrift find at only $1.47. 

...by partying, I mean of course tacos at the always amazing Taqueria El Amigo.  You can't go wrong in a cash-only, spanish-speaking only, seedy-part-of-town establishment. These are gooooooood. Man, now I want another. 

Absolutely gorgeous sunset

To work up an appetite we went sledding at Gore. Had the place to ourselves, except for the geese. 

Attempted a 2 ingredient slime

It was fun to play with, but not the true slime experience. Guess I'll need to buy borax after all. 

The sweater is done! I made it a daily "to-do" to knit at least two rows a day. And when you do that, suddenly projects get completed. The next day a pattern I'd ordered arrived and I am so excited to cast on. I'll be attempting cables for the first time...

Monday morning, before we realized how bad Hen really was, we dragged the kids to the park for some baseball with snow and a stick. 

Poor kid. She sat on the swing. 

Snails out of pipe cleaners and egg cartons for playgroup. Which we never had because of illness. Also not pictured but I made 60 sticky buns. Also for playgroup. And the number was excessive, but if you're going to make them you might as well make a quadruple batch. 

Lemonade made from leftover glaze for our muffins and blueberries to make it pink. 

Henri had a playdate with a classmate this morning, so Hud and I hung out at Home Depot. Actually, I wanted to hang, he just wanted to get our supplies. I love hardware stores. 

Lunch out! I might be coming around to loving this place. Especially since I discovered their Polynesian sauce...

Lots of thrifting going on in prep for the Ladies Tea. Shabby chic clocks and mirrors with pearls. I'm ridiculously excited about this one. It's going to be a lot more "girly" than what I usually do, but I think that's going to appeal to a large contingent, plus it means I can do a true Elevenses for the meal...

This is before I think he went swimming in mud. There is no other explanation for how unbelievably filthy he got. 

Childrens church craft for this week (String crosses for Easter decor. They'll color/paint the blocks first). Sanding down 16 blocks with a recalcitrant sander and then crookedly hammering...made me really miss being home and Papa's well stocked tool corner. In the background are some of the gorgeous frames I turned into antiqued mirrors with spray paint. I'm a pretty terrible painter, but it still delights me what a few bucks can do to an object. 

Hopefully the rest of us avoid Henri's germs and we can enjoy the last few days of vacation. We lived it up today and had ice cream for dinner. Who wants to cook on vacation?!

We live!

The cold of January finally seems to be over! Henri came home this week with another one, but hopefully the coming school break will be enough to nip it. There were a few odd days of excessive car-ness, but otherwise back to a normal week this week. Which felt great. Also not pictured, but somehow we've been at the library almost every day. Henri is really in to this series about fairies (so so so so sooooo stupid, I now totally get my mom's disparagement of the many formulaic series I used to be in to as a kid....) and we're going through at least a book a day. Hudson discovered Marvel and wow are there some ridiculous "superheroes" out there. Trying to steer him towards Norse and Greek mythology, at least he tolerates my playing of the Myths and Legends podcasts in the car.

We're back to taking (long) naps. Hurray! Unfortunately it's because he's up at the crack of dawn and thus ready for lunch by 10 and nap at 11...

Trying out the matcha fad. Put in a spinach and banana smoothie you can't taste it, the color is great, and it has enough caffeine I can skip my coffee without a headache. 

The sun is making its way back. Went for a long pleasant walk after school.

And then it snowed enough for school and work to be cancelled so Steve and Henri played "ice hockey".

...and she finished off my breakfast on me....

This was after I'd been driving 20 minutes. So cold the shifter was still iced up. 

Fridays call for afternoon coffees. 

The past two weeks she's gotten 100% on her spelling tests!

Legos are back in favor as the toy of choice

Slow progress on the knitting. It's gotten too bulky to easily take places so that's cut down on my knitting time. 

The library bookshelf is slowly becoming my green corner. 

More snow, more snow days.

Ok, prepare yourself: Did you know that you can take a biscuit from a can, punch a hole in it, fry it in veggie oil, and get the most amazing donut?!??????? Me either. Insane. And insanely easy (and cheap). Made glazed and cinnamon sugar. My sister made them maple glazed today and I'm going to have to try that next pronto. 

A little tablescaping for Valentines Day

Back to actually working out at the gym. And is typical, went out way too hard on the legs and have been lame the rest of the week. I've decided to just embrace my hatred of running and stick with the elliptical forever and ever. It's nice on my knees, and I get caught up on all my podcasts. 

In 3-15 years we might have an avocado tree!

Steve got me a rain jacket for Christmas but it wasn't my preferred color, so he returned it and found the right one. It came on Valentines. so it nicely covered both holidays :D

Oh this cake. It ended up not remotely resembling the recipe, but it was good. 3 layers of chocolate cake with chocolate ganache frosting and toffee bits between the layers, topped with caramel whipped cream and drizzled with salted caramel sauce and more toffee. 

Hud is moving up to the older class I think, so we tried it out today after his normal one. Then lunch at Saba's and no nap and he was asleep within minutes of bedtime. 

The new reading plan for Lent arrived! Yes, I could just read Isaiah from any one of the many Bibles we have lying about, but there's something so much more fun and inspiring about reading it from a visually gorgeous book.

Down but not defeated

It's been a long long week. Steve ended up taking all but Friday off, and as he's only had one other sick day in 10 years, well, you know it was bad. Kids and I are still coughing (actually, Henri sounds worse tonight....) but the pink eye seems to have cleared. Hudson and I tackled the house today, did the usual cleaning plus a purge of the kids room. Then I went through all my clothes and did an honest assessment of what actually fits and what's wishful thinking (a lot, apparently) and now we have nice tidy closets. So hopefully we're almost back to normal. As I have spent most of the past 10 days on the couch, not much to see:

I just got a tea and then sat in the car during Hudson's class. Fever kept me warm enough, and I got to see these deer saunter past.

18 felt piggy banks for children's church. This week I'm just doing a coloring sheet for the craft!

The Dollar Tree rarely disappoints. I'm decorating with mirrors and old clocks for the Tea this year, and these will be perfect for the tablescapes. 

Start them young. Having our cleaning schedule off due to illness really bugged Hud too. He was pretty happy that we cleaned today (his chores are dusting, toilet, folding bathroom linen, sorting the laundry, putting away his clothes. He vacuumed his room too although it's still a bit large for him to do a great job with that)

Bad picture of him, but he was thrilled to go out for falafal. By Thursday I was done having to come up with lunch as well as dinner for the whole family. So we went to Amsterdam Falafal and ate alllllllll the garlicky things. 

Gymnastics class

Fast food theme this week. Our big outing, we went to the mall on Saturday for lunch and to return a coat. And then everyone went home and took a long nap :)

Hud and I watched the Super Bowl online (thanks, Fox!) while Henri worked on cards for her class. Steve went to a party, and after the kids were in bed I had a lovely evening all to myself, with chocolate cake and peanut butter frosting to top it off with. 

So, pretty boring. We're back to a normal week this week with no major obligations. Yay!