Wow... well if January lasted forever, February sure flew by. We enjoyed celebrating Dane's sweet 16th birthday with a delicious dinner out at Melting Pot downtown. It was right up Dane's alley with the various selections of meat and cheese and desserts that he was able to choose from and then cook at our very own table. Loved spending that evening with him all to ourselves. We enjoyed celebrating Valentine's Day as a family with a delicious strawberry crepe dinner. No such thing as too much sugar on Valentine's Day. I used to go all out for most holidays but as the kids have gotten older, I've simmered down quite a bit. This year, I didn't have anything in particular planned outside of giving them a little heart of chocolates. But then I read a blog article titled: You can do something. The main gist of the article stating that you don't have to go all out, but you could do something small but significant to show your loved ones how much you care on special holidays. One suggestion was to write a list of things you love about your children or spouse. I really liked that idea so I set to work and wrote a note to each of them. Not sure they liked that more than all the fanfare of days past, but hopefully they got the message of just how important they are to me.
We enjoyed a week off of school for ski week. The kids really look forward to that time off and planned all sorts of fun adventures with friends to fill the time. We spent a day at Knottsberry Farm with the Judds and Carson and Sam. It was so quiet and empty- the perfect day for an amusement park! Anna celebrated Millie's birthday, Grant went to Seaworld with friends. It was a really fun few days before heading up to Brianhead/St. George for skiing and visiting with Stacy and her friend Kira. We missed Grandma and Grandpa very very much. They had to stay back because Grandpa still needed time to recover from his back surgery. Wasn't the same without them but we did enjoy the ski days and meeting up with so many families from school and church on the slopes. We enjoyed going out to dinner and the mall with Stac after our ski days and LOVED having Evelyn around for the weekend. She and Anna spent a day together getting their nails done, drinking fruit refreshers from Starbucks and shopping around town while we skied and then we all spent the evening together. Overall, a very fun weekend.
In kids news... Anna continues to be passionate and happy and the most social child on earth. She dragged Blake to a father's son campout in the FREEZING cold one evening. Daughters were an afterthought to this event but Anna wouldn't miss it for the world! She also dragged me to the nail salon, probably her favorite place on earth. She adores nail care and truly LIVES to get her nails done at salons but mostly she does her own nails and she's quite good. Now she's moved on to skin care and she runs a "business" at home doing everyone's facials. She spends 15 minutes massaging and putting various skin products on Dane and Blake's faces. I am scheduled for my facial tonight! Ha! Sundays are always the most boring days for Anna because she is home without the possibility of social events or errands. But she makes the most of it. Recently she started organizing all of my drawers and she's done this for Dane as well. She is an incredible organizer! I love how much she enjoys organizing and cleaning up. Heaven knows she doesn't love doing this in her own room, but she's getting there. Anna also started begging to have Sophie- Kate's little sister- come over on Sundays for a couple hours before her nap. Anna adores baby-sitting Sophie and it makes our day more fun to have a toddler around so it's a win win. Anna continues to love dance class and her dance class buddies. She loves making smoothies and peanut butter/banana toast, she loves snap chat filters, and helping out at Dane's games- the snack shack is a blast and Anna is a master nacho maker! Overall, Anna is almost always in a good mood and makes us all laugh on a constant basis.
Grant started flag football this month and that has been a huge highlight for him. He is on a team with a bunch of his buddies and we are good friends with the coach so it's going to be a great season. Grant has been so helpful to our friend who broke his leg on our trampoline- he visits him and checks in on him. He is an amazing friend to those who need one and such a good example of someone who cares about others. Grant has been very careful about his sleep and food lately which has made me so happy! He makes himself eggs and bacon each morning and gets to bed by 8:30. This is all on his own because he's realized that he feels better when he goes to bed at 8:30 so he will not stay up a minute past 8:30 and this has made him so much happier and healthier! I'm truly so proud of him. He also started taking up guitar again and has been watching YouTube lessons in an attempt to increase his skills. He has been into surfing and hoping to go at least once a week which is actually quite difficult in the winter months as it has been very wet and rainy! The other day Grant started a show on Hulu about football. The show was rated PG13 and recommended by other friends. I had never seen it but told him I trusted him to make a good decision. He watched 8 episodes when the show started to become a little too heavy on the romance and slightly inappropriate in his mind so he told me though he really enjoyed it, he was going to stop watching. Grant is a very disciplined and thoughtful kid who wants to be the best he can be and I so admire him for that.
Dane finished his high school soccer season mid way through the month and life slowed down just a bit for him once that ended. That was a lot of after school commitment and traveling and all of it so much fun. We enjoyed hosting the boys one last time for a pasta party around Dane's birthday although he wouldn't allow me to bring out a birthday cake or sing happy birthday to him with his soccer buddies which made me very sad! But it was fun to have the team over, nonetheless. Love all the fun soccer pictures of Dane throughout the season. Loved getting to know the families and the boys. Now on to club. Dane has had a tough time as of late with focusing and working on his mental health. He is in the process of doing all he can to work on it, but it is challenging and overwhelming for him at times. It has been grueling as his mom to watch him not be himself and face these challenges however, I believe he is one of the strongest people I know and he will be able to do the things he needs to do in order to feel better. He already tries so hard to do all the "stuff" that is actually quite hard. Hopefully soon he will have his drivers license!!! We stopped in Pasadena on the way home from Utah and picked up a used car for him to drive- it's a family car, but he is the primary driver once he gets his license. He is super excited for that! For Dane's birthday- Rhett, Ryan and Luke- his buddies who he drives to seminary with- decorated their car and blasted music and had all sorts of party garb on to pick him up. They walked him into seminary with donuts (I had provided) and singing happy birthday. It was so cute and so sweet and he really felt special. I was so grateful to those sweet boys for making Dane feel good on his special day. Grandma also came down with a sweet initialed key chain and birthday $$. She drove all the way down, leaving Grandpa, just to give Dane a hug and be able to talk with him for a minute or two. It was so sweet. I'm sure Dane felt loved and special... can't believe he's 16!
Ev enjoyed a few fun trips this month- both to St. George. She went with a few friends to see the Parade of Homes and hike around. Then she came back up to visit with us. LOVED that special time with her. She also had a fun evening with Grammy, Papa and Noah out to eat. Papa's brother in law, Larry, had passed away and so they were in town for the funeral. Eli came out to visit Evelyn, much to her mom and dad's dismay. But she followed the campus rules and they did seem to have a wonderful time together. I have to trust her and know that hopefully things will work out and all will be as it's supposed to be. Hard to do with your adult children but there's not a lot of other options! Ev got a job working at Care.Com as a nanny and it's so great that she is earning money. Really proud of her! She is working hard on all of her college classes, meeting with a nutritionist and therapist weekly to help with her eating troubles and though it's hard, she is doing a good job working through it all and I'm very proud of her! She is taking voice lessons and loves her biology class and study skills class. Could do without her philosophy class, but she does enjoy the professor. She is hoping to go to beauty school too- that's something she's going to need to convince Blake of!!! He'd prefer she finish her degree first. We'll see how that plays out.
As for me, I've spent a lot of the month working on a new project for my business. A collection of worksheets called therapeutic conversations. I love doing this, but it takes a lot of time and I feel that I'm not as available as I once was for subbing and other volunteer activities. It's so hard to know how to spend your time appropriately! I want to do it all but never have the time for it. I've enjoyed so much working on this project and learning how to design worksheets that allow therapists or life coaches, or parents to sit down and have a 10 minute discussion with a child or teen about really important life topics related to mental wellness. We'll see how it all goes, but I'm definitely enjoying the process so far. For Valentine's Day, Blake got me an ice maker and I'm THRILLED!!!!!! The best present on earth! I love it so much and I'm so so grateful to him for being so sweet and thoughtful. He's off the hook the rest of the year when it comes to good deeds. And that's a wrap for the month. It's been a good one, short but sweet in every way.
