If you’re new around these parts, this monthly series is an exercise in brevity as I try (sometimes not very hard) to summarize each day of our month in one sentence. (Also, I’ve been taking a picture of my daughter every day since she was born, and this is a GREAT place for me to share several of those!). Although I’ve almost always included the photo at the top of its corresponding day, the daily captions of what we did and the photos often do not match. (Just to clarify!)
Thanks to the wonderful Rebecca Jo for the post idea!
Thursday 2/1 – Took our monthly trip to Sam’s Club, where we also indulged in our monthly tradition of having Matt meet us there for lunch after. Other than the fact that Raven took no nap after (and I’m starting to despair that she might be getting to the point that she’s over the whole napping stage completely), it was a good day.
Friday 2/2 – Had an impromptu play date/visit when we went to go drop a book off over at a friend’s house. We moms enjoyed a nice long chat while our kids played downstairs.
Saturday 2/3 – With our taxes accepted and our refund coming soon via direct deposit, we decided to use some of the funds we’ll be getting back to buy a guest bed, which we went looking for on this day. After shopping around at a few different places, we settled on a nice one that should last us basically forever (since it’s just for the guest room), and spent the rest of the day figuring out how to get it home (which we eventually were able to do, courtesy of a neighbor who was willing to loan us the use of his truck). Matt was not excited about this expense at all, but I’m so happy that we actually have a great bed to offer guests when they want to stay over!
Sunday 2/4 – After our normal church responsibilities, I made a pan of homemade frosted brownies and we all headed over to our next-door neighbors’ house to watch the first half of the Superbowl. Raven totally had a blast having an extended play date with the kids over there, and we enjoyed stuffing our faces and building friendships of our own. We’ve really been impressed by the people we’ve met in our new neighborhood since we moved in last June!
Monday 2/5 – A kick-off to a very busy week, though it started in the usual way with storytime at the library, where Raven enjoyed running around outside for about ten minutes after with one of her little friends from our neighborhood who comes to storytime regularly, too.
Tuesday 2/6 – A busy day that started early, with us trying to get our new-to-us van registered, going grocery shopping, and me going to my exercise class. The whole day is actually chronicled here, as it was the one I did for my “Day in the Life” post.
Wednesday 2/7 – As Matt is the Scoutmaster for our local troop, he got off work early and jetted right off to the church to get ready for the huge Blue and Gold Banquet that he and his awesome committee have been working on for literally months. The whole thing was themed around Harry Potter, and let me tell you what—they really went all out. Raven and I helped set up a bit, though we couldn’t stay (a fact that had Raven sniffling and crying for the next hour as we went back home).
Thursday 2/8 – Matt and I were able to go to a dinner and presentation at The Bluebird put on by a financial advisor we’ve been looking into working with, courtesy of our friends agreeing to watch Raven for the night. A fun little weeknight date! (I was joking with Matt that all of our dates should have an educational component since that’s basically my very definition of fun.)
Friday 2/9 – We had a fun family night of pizza from Pizza Plus, followed up by us helping Raven decorate valentines for the first time (which she absolutely LOVED). We had a lot of fun having her make one for each of her six grandparents, and I was laughing to myself that the only thing that would ever make me voluntarily do crafts is wanting my kids to have the opportunity to like them.
Saturday 2/10 – A super busy day, but a good one. We started off by meeting my mom at The Treehouse Museum in Ogden, where we all delighted in watching how much fun Raven was having, then we all went out to eat after. I’ve talked before how we started almost exclusively giving out “experience” gifts to our parents for their birthdays and for Christmas, and this was one we’d given my mom last month for her b-day. We absolutely love our new tradition, and we love how many memories it gives us! After we got back, we watched our friends’ baby for them so they could go out on an early V-day date.
Sunday 2/11 – Got a bit of a scare with my mom being in the ER (don’t worry–everything turned out fine), but our plans got rearranged a bit as a result. We ended up leaving church early to head down south to carry on with the Valentine’s Day party my mom had planned (with her still in the hospital) because she insisted we still do it, then we all went out to see her in her hospital room and got the happy news that she wouldn’t have to stay the night as planned. Raven loved being able to give the valentines she had made to her four grandparents who live close by, and we got the two ready to mail for her grandparents who live farther away.
Monday 2/12 – We (Raven and I) got a lot of errands out of the way today as we went grocery shopping and picked up some surprises for Valentine’s Day.
Tuesday 2/13 – Some of the moms in our neighborhood had this really awesome idea to throw a “classroom-style” party for all the kids who were too young to be in elementary school and have Valentine’s Day parties to go to, so we went to that and made little valentine boxes and other crafts, decorated some sugar cookies, played some games, and passed out cards and treats to all the other kids in their little mailboxes. Raven had so much fun, and I really love that we moved to a neighborhood full of so many creative and welcoming people.
Wednesday 2/14 – Raven and I sneakily packed Matt’s lunch for him in the morning and put in the valentines we each had made and a little heart-shaped box of chocolates we’d picked up. Just minutes after I’d whispered to Raven that it was a secret and that we weren’t going to tell Daddy, she accosts him as soon as he’s dressed and out of the shower and says, “What’s in there, Daddy?” (pointing to the lunchbox). “Look in there!” Ha ha. (He did wait until work to look, however!)
Thursday 2/15 – A stand-out day! Matt’s parents and my mom came up to go to our ultrasound appointment with us, and Matt took the last few hours off of work to come too. After finding out we are having a BOY, we all went out to celebrate at our favorite local eatery (Angie’s) and then had his parents show us the property out here in Hyrum that Matt’s grandparents used to own (and where his parents actually got engaged!). It was just how I wanted the day to go.
Friday 2/16 – Matt came home with Valentine’s Day surprises for Raven and me (because I told him to wait until AFTER the holiday to get everything on deep discount, ha ha), and every time I see the beautiful bouquet on our kitchen table (and eat handfuls of Tootsie Rolls), I just get a little extra dose of happy into my day. Later, after Raven was in bed, Matt and I went old-school and played our favorite two-player card game (Hand and Foot, with Rook cards) while watching old episodes of Big Bang Theory, which was something we used to do ALL the time but haven’t done in months and months and months.
Saturday 2/17 – Our friends came by for our monthly themed dinner, and this month’s theme was “Chinese New Year,” and we hosted. We had potstickers and Asian chicken wraps, and we finished it all off by writing fortunes for each other and attempting to make our own fortune cookies (which, while they looked kind of terrible, still tasted way better than the usual takeout version).
Sunday 2/18 – A really busy day of church responsibilities, and after having several weeks of no snow and mild weather, we felt a bit sad when we totally got DUMPED on (over a foot in just one day).
Monday 2/19 – More snow fell in the night and in the morning, so Raven and I went out around 11 in the morning to do some shoveling as a surprise for Matt (since I knew he was really sore from doing it for a couple hours by himself Sunday night). Afterwards, I knew PERSONALLY why he was so sore, ha ha—that was some heavy, wet snow! For our weekly family night we do every Monday, we had fun with the sticker bracelet kit Matt bought for Raven for V-day.
Tuesday 2/20 – This day was suuuuper cold, but we still went out for a grocery run in the morning, where I made an impulsive purchase of some new markers since we didn’t own any and Raven had never used them. She eagerly tore into them once we got home, but she kept calling them her “new crayons.” We’ll work on it.
Wednesday 2/21 – We met with the same financial advisor again that we’d met with earlier in the month, this time to do a more in-depth look at our investments and the diversity and performance of our current portfolio. We still don’t know who we’re going to go through to rollover Matt’s 401k, but it was a good start in letting us know the direction we need to take.
Thursday 2/22 – Finally, a quiet evening with nothing planned! As per my new “rule” for myself, I let this be the one night a week I watched t.v., so Matt and I caught up on our shows and enjoyed being pretty lazy.
Friday 2/23 – Despite it snowing almost the whole day, we still took our planned trip down south for the weekend to stay with my family and were pleased that the roads weren’t as bad as we feared. My mom made us a hot dinner and my niece was staying over there too, so we all ate together and then had a relaxing evening of reading (me) and watching the Olympics (everyone else).
Saturday 2/24 – We started the morning off by taking my niece to the temple to do baptisms for the first time (while my mom graciously watched Raven). Later, my two nieces offered to watch Raven and get her down to bed, allowing Matt and I to head over to his parents’ place for some Chinese food and a lot of chatting with his family.
Sunday 2/25 – My cousin is leaving to serve a religious mission shortly, so he spoke on this day in church (which is why we’d driven down to our hometown this weekend, so we could hear him). We followed it all up with a huge brunch with much of my extended family on my mom’s side and then a short layover at Matt’s folks’ house before finally heading back home. A busy weekend, but a great one!
Monday 2/26 – We had a bit of a difficult start to the morning (I chalk it up to a crazy-but-fun weekend where our schedule was totally thrown off), but Raven calmed down once we actually got to our regular storytime hour at our local library (thank goodness!). Did some makeshift “bowling” together for family night (in which Raven, whenever she’d miss from five or six feet away, would rush over and knock them all over by hand with pride).
Tuesday 2/27 – Raven and I went out in the morning to do another round of shoveling the snow (which seems to show no sign of going away…sigh), and let’s just say, it was a pretty sub-par job. Apparently when there’s ice underneath the latest layer of fresh stuff, I just skim over the top of it and call it good (at least when 5 months pregnant).
Wednesday 2/28 – Matt had a meeting after we put Raven down for the night, and so I basically got a LOT of reading done this day, which is always a good thing in my book!
For such a short month, I felt like we sure packed a bunch into this February! How has your year been going so far?
