Hello! I hope everyone survived the cold we have been enduring this month. What a long, cold month is has been for being the shortest one of the year. Impressively enough, we have maintained our status of "sick" that started mid-January for the entirety of this month. Amelia was on medicine for 20 out of February's 28 days, which was super long and challenging for all of us.
We have accomplished quite a bit this month, so our month of rest was not really a thing...though we had plenty of opportunity for prayer with all the sickness and other challenges! Our freezer is full of meat, we are moved into our new room - it's not totally finished, but we are living in it, both of the other bathrooms have been cleaned and reorganized so has the hall closet and the linen closet, additionally, they have all been re-stocked or have re-stocks ordered! Quite thrilling, I know.
There have been some very long, very challenging work days, I will say that, on top of being sick the entire month, we have been getting done what we need to and just white knuckling the rest it seems like! We have had some really awesome time at home together as a family though, whether on a work day or playing games, it has been great. God is good to give us time together even in the chaos!
On my days off I have been trying to get the freezer padded with a few meals for either when baby comes or when third trimester gets long. I have had one baby appointment and taken the kids to the doctor 5 times this month, so it has been a bit of a challenge and we have definitely got some take out this month, but overall we have been able to keep eating at home as much as possible! It has been a lot of balancing naps and food for me, some days one out-weighs the other!
A few of our home projects that have NOT involved us doing anything but paying have been getting our cabinet made and getting a garage door for our third garage. The garage thing was very simple, we called, they installed, all done. Still waiting for the cabinet but it is wonderful to know that we are getting exactly what we want without us having to be the ones doing the work! Jonathan has had the chance to get a lot of other stuff done, like the closet, the railing, the baby gate, the mirrors, and a whole bunch of other stuff!
We have been having small group every Wednesday, which is very life-giving. It is great to spend time with people who are on the same page and are willing to have hard conversations. We have really enjoyed the study we are doing this semester and are hoping to have some more studies like it here in the future, thankfully, still a few more weeks to go! It has been great.
Valentine's day was this month, I work every Valentine's day somehow, so we went out another night a few weeks later. Got our favorite cheesecake, which was delicious as usual, but Jonathan got us flowers and ice cream for the actual day!
The kids and I have been going to the library as much as we can between sicknesses. Amelia has been learning to read, which has been both a blessing and a challenge. She is working really hard at it and is making some progress! It is so fun to see. We have not been quite as diligent as we have wanted to be since there have been plenty of sick days, but we are working through it and she is so excited to do it every day!
All the crazy weather and we only had one power outage! For some reason, we seem to have them quite a bit, we live 4 minutes from Mom and Dad and, shocker, they never lose their power. How does that happen? We don't know. However, in the super cold, the temperature drops in our house like a rock! We learned that pretty quick. We all took naps since there was nothing else we could do and when we woke up it was nice and chilly. Thankfully, it only lasted about 2 hours! Wouldn't have wanted it to last much longer, that's for sure.
I am starting a new venture in my kitchen - sourdough. I realize I am very late to this party, but it has been fun to get started. Admittedly, a bit high maintenance, but I feel like I am getting somewhere and I am thankful for it! Progress is very encouraging!
Amelia loves going to Nanny and Poppy's, but she had an extra special day with her friend Thea the other week when Thea's Nana brought her over for a play date a Nanny's! She was so incredibly excited, it was sweet to hear about it.
We moved to our master bedroom near the end of the month. I did all the cleaning and organizing while Jonathan did the finishing touches on the bathroom before we cleaned and were able to move in. When I say the kids played together happily all day - I am not exaggerating. The two of them played together with little to no supervision the whole time. They were always around me, but I was busy and they just played happily! Around seven in the evening we were ready to move everything and the kids had a blast moving stuff from one closet to the other. William was just running back and forth "Sorry, Mommy! Sorry, Daddy!" when he almost ran into us - because the idea of slowing down was not computing for him. Thankfully, no major collisions and only a few extra items that had to be returned. It was a blast. The next day we took them shopping for some of the things on our list to re-stocks and grabbed some take-out on the way home! They really enjoyed it, we enjoyed it, it was a much needed family evening after a day of chaos!
Our prayer is that this month will have a lot of health and recovery - complete and total recovery for our family! I hope everyone else has been staying away from all these bugs! We certainly don't wish them on anyone!
Love,
Jonathan, Allison, Amelia and William
