February: The shortest month that always feels like the longest.

1.  Have you ever heard of or been to the Winchester mansion? (or Winchester Mystery House?)  It's near San Francisco.  I visited it years ago on a choir tour when I was in high school.  The owner of the home had never ending construction going on the house.  Up until the day she died, something was being renovated or added on.  And it wasn't normal.  Like, a staircase that would lead to nothing, a door that would open to a wall, etc.

I sometimes feel like this, but on a much smaller budget, and a little less crazy.  I never feel like our home is 'done'.  I love changing things up, moving furniture, adding or taking away decorations, spray painting old stuff, etc.  I know Paul feels like it will never end (and it might not), but regular changes, even little ones, stop me from feeling bored and sad.  Right now I'm working on Addie's room and two walls of photos.  After that, the guest room and our room.  I gave myself a $20 budget for Addie's room and so far I've spent just over $14.  Pictures coming soon.  Maybe I'll post before and after pictures so you can be as surprised as I am with how easy it is to freshen things up on a budget.  And on the photo walls, a $0 budget.  I'm only using pictures, frames and spray paint that I already have on hand.

2.  I'm dedicating this month to vegetables.  My kids need to eat more vegetables.  Spinach and zucchini are our new best friends.  They are the two least strong tasting vegetables when mixed with something else, (in my opinion).  I used to use spinach a lot, but then just stopped remembering to use it as much.  I'm determined this month to make it a habit.  This week we've had spinach smoothies and spinach scrambled eggs.  Both huge successes! (ugly but good.)  I'm thinking mashed potatoes, pasta sauce (I've added pureed or shredded carrots a lot to pasta sauce, but I'm going to start adding more greens.)  Maybe even french toast.  And I'm fully armed and ready to read 'Green Eggs and Ham' at breakfast if I can't get the egg thing to work on a regular basis.

And here's how I make a smoothie for two.  I use a magic bullet and love it.
- 6-8 frozen strawberries
- sometimes frozen peach slices or mango when it's on sale, and then a couple less strawberries
- 2-3 spoonfuls of greek honey yogurt.  (Trader Joe's sells a really yummy honey greek.)
- about 3/4 cup fresh spinach ( I use Trader Joe's organic)
- 1/2 a banana
- I thin it out so it'll blend well with a little V8 splash.  (I don't always buy this stuff, orange or apple juice work fine too. But V8 makes me feel better about myself because there's vegis in it, so they say.)

3.  We watched the Super Bowl with Paul's family and a couple of Paul's friends. Both spouses of the friends are pregnant, well one for sure, the other, maybe... but anyway, us girls talked a lot about morning sickness and baby names.  After we got home and put the kids to bed, Paul and I somehow got talking about baby names, and how we don't need to have this conversation again for a really long time (if ever).  Fast forward an hour, we have a girl first name but no middle name, and five boy names.  Five. One he likes and I don't, one I like and he doesn't, and three that we agree on.  And strangely enough, the three we both like all start with 'G', and we don't know if we want two G names in the family.  Then we reminded each other, again, that we don't need to worry about that right now, and we went to bed.  (Sidenote: Really, how do people have more than two kids?  The laundry, the space, the clutter, the lack of sleep, the expense.  Bravo all of you 3 or mores out there.)

4.  I've been on the hunt for new 'snuggle buggles' for the kids.  I don't know if I'll be able to trick them, but I can't keep sewing these things back together.  And the fur on Addie's is so matted down that if she drags it outside for even a second, it's become impossible to pick or wash the leaves and dirt out.  This is a tough one, I'm sure you care so I'll keep you posted on my progress.

Snuggle buggle laundry day is a bad day for everyone.

5.  Addie is saying new words everyday (so is Garrett), but Addie really surprises me with how well she communicates.  She's no where close to putting words together, (except for 'Hi Dad'), but she's a smart girl and a great communicator.  She always says "Yeah" when you ask her if she wants something, even if she doesn't want it.  She says "Mama" once politely, and if I don't respond it gets a little louder, then turns to stomping in rhythm, "Mama, MaMa, MAMA!"  When you ask her how old she is, she says, "two."  Then it becomes a game, "no you're one!"  "two!"  "no One!!"  "Twoooo!!"  Garrett's version of 'Chocolate Milk' would probably be spelled like this: Cha-led-a-led-a-led-a Melk.  That's pretty much the only thing he asks for specifically, aside from hot dogs and bananas, and juice, but chocolate milk is daily, several times a day.  Now Addie says it anytime she sees anything being eaten or taken out of the fridge, but she only says the "led-a-led-a-led-a" part, she thinks it means, "I'll have what you're having."  Other words I've noticed her saying are: more, done, no, toot, Bapa, bye-bye, hot, arm, baby, and a couple days ago I think she said "Manti Te'o" after I'd watched a Ronaiah Tuiasosopo interview, but I think that one may have just been in my head.

6.  Last week I walked in to get Garrett and found him half way out of his crib.  It caught me off guard and my natural reaction scared him.  The last time this happened we both scared each other enough that it bought me another year of having him sleep in his crib with no escape attempts, here's hoping for another year of not needing to convert to the toddler bed.  (I might let him upgrade when he starts kindergarten.)

Addie's new hair-do.  A little future gymnast. And lookin' cool.

visitors from utah and alaska

My brother and his wife came to California to spend a couple days at Disneyland with her family, but they stayed with us and we got to spend a couple days with them too. It happened to be the week before Garrett's surgery and my parents were planning to come out during that time anyway, so we had a full house but it worked out perfectly.

Garrett is my little helper boy. He wants to assist with everything from laundry, to garbage, to sweeping and dusting. He really slows me down, but I try and be patient because he's always so proud of himself when I say "Thank you for helping!" He smiles and bounds around so happy looking for the next thing to do.We met up with Tay and Sam at Disneyland one evening for a couple of hours.We went on a picnic with Grammy and Grandpa.We had a pizza party and everyone got to make their own. Garrett loved being able to do whatever he wanted with his pizza. Playing with food was finally allowed and he loved it.Yep, he must be my kid. :)He was so happy when Grammy helped him put the baby carrier on with his puppy inside. He couldn't quite figure it out on his own.His favorite book that I got at a library sale for a quarter. We read it over, and over, and over... Even Garrett has it memorized and he's made up little actions for different parts of the story.We went to the Santa Monica Pier. Watching Garrett torment these pigeons was the highlight of the day. He was fearless, walking through them, grabbing their tails, scaring them away. Even getting flapped in the face didn't stop him.We had a Super Bowl party. I dressed the kids as footballs. And as you can see, Garrett was so thrilled about it that he was overcome with emotion.Garrett had his surgery (that I already wrote about) on Monday the 6th. Tay, Sam and my dad all left that day. My mom had a ticket to leave that Wednesday, but because of Garrett's strict schedule of soaking in the tub several times a day, ointments, medicine, etc, she decided to stay til Saturday night. I'm SO thankful she did. Thankfully the kid loves the tub, but it was very time consuming. I only gave him one bath that week and he had about 20 over those 4 or 5 days. Thank you Grammy!And just a few things I maybe never mentioned. I had mastitis again a few weeks ago and had to take an antibiotic again. I also took a milk thinner to help push the infection through, and a milk producer to help with a low supply on one side because of a damaged milk duct when I had a lump removed after Garrett was born. Addie had a clogged tear duct and had drops for a few days because it was slightly infected. She also is taking her tummy drops, just twice a day, not 6 times, and she's had a great couple of days. We also tried gripe water with her too. And then Garrett... Pain meds, pro-biotics, laxatives, ointments... Glad Paul is healthy! Actually we are all very healthy, but looking at my counter top at the moment, you'd think otherwise.