February

February, the month of LOVE! Valentine's day was super fun this year, especially since Lilly got to do her first valentine's card exchange at school! She helped to prepare for it by making glow stick valentines, and baking up some heart shaped graham crackers to share. She asked to do the graham crackers after we made some just for us at home, she truly loves giving to others and is so unselfish! We bookended the day with yummy meals: pink pancakes with pink milk and a candlelight dinner with red velvet cake. (Which, by the way, contains an entire 1 oz bottle of red food coloring. Lilly looked at me in shock and said, "The whole bottle?!" Yeah, it felt a little crazy to me too. Oh well, once a year can't hurt? Also, I guess I didn't take a picture. Sorry.)

Lilly made us some V-day cards at preschool. 

She wrote "Drew" on one, which I thought was super cute.

Drew decided to dress fancy to match our "fancy" dinner.

Next year I'll iron the tablecloth . . . not!

1st attempt at chicken cordon bleu . . .

(Thanks Mel!)

Henry participated, too, sort of.

In sadder news, we said farewell to Charlie, the fish, this month. He was Lilly's first pet, and I was really worried about how she would react. Turns out she didn't really care. So we all said goodbye to Charlie, and then sent him on his way to wherever the toilet bowl leads. You were a good fish Charlie. We'll miss you.

Now on to the rest of the month . . .

Drew continued to make crazy bowties:

I managed to sneak into one picture. Barely.

I also made it through a whole month without buying bread! I'm still working on getting my homemade whole wheat just right, but it's getting there.

More importantly, we finished watching all of Battlestar Galactica! It only took us 5 years.

Henry is now 5 months old, and he just keeps getting cuter.

He got his cranial band this month, and is rocking it. I like to call it his "cuteness enhancer" for the way it highlights his eyes and accentuates his chubby cheeks. We noticed his head was lopsided, flat on the back left side to be exact, when he was a couple months old. After a couple more months where we tried to reposition him when he slept, we saw little improvement, so we decided to just be proactive and fix it. The younger you do it the easier it is, so he'll probably only need it for 6-10 weeks. Sometimes his head smells a little like a foot, but mostly it's okay. Also, not sure if it's related to the helmet, but he started sleeping on his stomach after getting it. He loves it, and falls asleep better this way, so now we always put him down on his tummy. (Don't call CPS.) 

Here he is on the day he got the helmet. Happy before.

And happy after!

Actually, he's pretty much happy all the time. I seriously love this boy.

He's sitting up by himself really well now, so we let him taste squash one day and rice cereal another. It was fun, but not fun enough for me to want to do it everyday quite yet.

Plus, he still spits out most of it.

He's getting super strong, but still doesn't roll from his tummy to his back (except one time when he was supposed to be sleeping). But he can roll from his back to his tummy in both directions and he can pull himself around in a full circle to get to toys on the ground.

When he gets tired he just lays like this . . .

I know, adorable, right? Sorry, you can't have him. He's mine.

Mine.

Mine.

By the way, these two still love each other:

Lilly finished up her 8 week session of gymnastics at the local rec center this month, and started into an 8 week session of dance. In classes she tends to be a little timid, but she's always listening and tries to be very precise in what she does. 

She's been asking to do ballet classes for awhile, but she was too young. She's actually still a little young for the class, but she really wanted to do it so we signed her up for a short session to try it out.

Here she is showing me her moves at home.

She was super excited to get her dance shoes and leotard.

The first day of class she was a little shy and mostly observed, but we practiced at home all week and she had a lot of fun the second time. She especially loves when they dance with scarves to the tune of "Let it Go." She's kind of obsessed with Frozen right now, and pretends to be Elsa all day at home.

Aren't little girls in dance clothes the cutest?!

She's also a good little kite flyer.

Someone gave Lilly some hand-me-down scrubs, which are super cute, but the outfit got a little ridiculous when she added tap shoes and her Dr. Seuss hat.

Also, this happened . . .

Lilly continues to enjoy preschool, and is learning lots of reading, writing and 'rithmatic. They do some social studies and science topics, too, like weather, holidays, seasons, animals, etc., but only a little. So we've been doing simple science experiments/lessons at home, some I thought of, some from books we borrowed from the library. She loves it, and has started asking to do "speriments." I honestly get excited to do them, too. 

Mostly she is a dream child, and is so good at self-regulating that I'm not sure she even needs me. She often just takes herself to quiet time, knows what foods are good for her, and will remind me when I'm on the computer that, "It's not good for us to play on the computer or watch movies all day." I also love the way she sings in the shower and the size of her smile when she's jumping on my bed.

I feel pretty darn lucky to be this beautiful little girl's mom.