February

This month has flown by and I am grateful the cold and sickness-filled month of February is over. We enjoyed good times of course, but there was way too much illness! More on that later.

Holiday Celebrations

Happy Groundhogs day!

Happy Valentine's day! (Rob and the kids are decorating cookies, you can
 tell how much Rob is enjoying himself) 

We celebrated Chinese New Year by reading books about the holiday, making dragon masks and then dancing to dragon music. The kids loved it (and I loved seeing Rob dance around with the kids).

Snow

We have been inundated by snow this month! I've included all the occasions under one section.

During one of the storms the kids were sick so they couldn't go out and enjoy the snow. So.... I brought it into them! Asher creatively started using a toy tractor of his as a snowplow.

Tractor/ snowplow with snow in kitchen

After Rob shoveled snow Asher ran up to Rob and handed him a toy gold coin and said, "Good job, you deserve this Dad!"

We took the kids sledding for the first time with some friends. The kids (especially Jacqueline) loved it!

Rob, Jacqueline, and a friend about to go down  

Rob trucking up a hill with Jacqueline and our "sled" (really a beach body board)

The kids enjoying a fort Rob made them

Rob requested this silly picture be included

Illness

I will always LOVE the picture below. Why? For 3 days Jacqueline showed no interest in playing and only wanted to be held and was constantly sick to her stomach. The picture shows the 5 minutes Jacqueline wanted to play a day after returning home from a brief visit to the hospital.

Jacqueline had been constantly sick and vomiting the month of February. Just as I thought she was better she'd throw up again. I took her into the doctor's several times but they were not finding anything wrong with the initial tests they ran and so it was chalked up to recurring viruses. On the 21st (after a week of being "well") she became violently ill and started throwing up water and other liquids. That weekend she became very lethargic and had no interest in playing and we could tell she had lost more weight (which she doesn't have to loose!) and so I took her to the hospital. They ran some tests and found out that she had a rotavirus and campylobacter (food poisoning based bacteria) infection. Poor girl! After giving her a dose of an anti-nausea drug they released her and sent us home with a supply of the medicine. It worked wonders! Within two days she started eating more then Asher and has pretty much kept up the pace.

I loved seeing my daughter start to play again!!!

Did I mention that the same weekend Asher was sick? And Rob was sick that weekend and the whole next week? And did I also mention the two other times I took the kids to the doctor's for illness towards the beginning of the month? Fun times.

A bright spot in the midst of sickness: Dinosaur and duck
character hats from and made by Grandma Wilkerson

Welcome March, warmer weather and better health!!!