This post features pictures that were taken the end of January and all of February.
One morning for our project and sensory time, we made Oobleck! It is goo made with water and cornstarch. Dallin really liked it. Tanner liked using tools to manipulate the goo, but as soon as he got messy, he left the scene to wash his hands and never came back, haha. That’s part of his SPD, he often has a really hard time with messy projects. Dallin got the whole table to himself!
Dallin is catching up to Tanner in shoe size. As soon as Tanner is done with his shoes, he passes them off to Dallin, and sometimes, Dallin’s feet are too big for them.
I had to hold their feet still, and luckily there is almost half an inch difference. I never expected that with 22 months apart, my boys would be so close in shoe and clothing sizes. In fact, I’m positive that Dallin’s hands are bigger than Tanner’s. It’s really strange!
We enjoyed ART night at the boys’ school. Dallin nailed it with the Mona Lisa expression.
Playdo table
Painting with water colors. The boys loved the evening and could have stayed another hour.
Another evening, we enjoyed a beautiful recital in the Hormel Historic Home by some descendants of the Hormel family. Tanner really liked the guy with the guitar.
This is Mary Sue Harris, a descendant of the Hormel family, and pretty much the closest thing I’ll ever get to meeting Lillian Hormel. This woman is amazing and donates large grants to the Hormel Home so that we can enjoy free concerts and music programs throughout the year. It was such an honor to meet her, I was so giddy! She played a bunch of Gershwin music for us on the piano. The boys sat through all her pieces, bouncing and tapping to the beat. I was really happy to see them enjoy the performance almost as much as I did!
Jeremy at work. Isn’t he cute?
Tanner and Jeremy stuffed Tanner’s sleeves to make him look super buff. Tanner wore his shirt like this for hours, it was really hilarious.
Asserting his dominance with his big muscles, haha.
Dallin tried using some old hair gel one morning before school. It was super gooey and wouldn’t come out for about 3 days.
We took a family walk in the dome- a nice retreat from the coooold air.
The place lets people walk inside the dome, around the perimeter, for free.
This is me in my freaky hat, but it keeps me so SO warm!
Tanner drew this for his Daddy for Valentines day.
On the other side, he drew a picture of Jeremy holding him, and wrote “Dear dad. From Tanner. I love you.” with his invented spelling. So sweet!!
In his notebook Tanner wrote a story about a mouse and a mouse trap. He sounded out the words he wanted to write, and used mostly consonants. It was so fun watching him write this. He was so focused and so proud of himself. I cheered him on. I think he got himself tuckered out because he hasn’t written much since then. I bet he’ll do more when he’s ready.
Tanner was doodling and ended up making a silly little bird. This picture is at least 6 months old, but I wanted to make sure I got a shot of it.
We took an outing to the Spam Museum after school one day. We love this place.
This Mezclita style/flavor of SPAM is one that comes from Puerto Rico. The people there love blending it up with cheese and stuff. I’ve heard Jeremy talk about it a bunch from his business trips, so it was cool to see it show up on the wall of SPAM varieties that you can buy now.
It never gets old to get a picture with Sir Can-a-lot, defender of SPAM.
Jeremy gets annoyed with my efforts to save trash. I use them for instruments in my family music classes.
Dallin was really tired one evening and couldn’t make it to the house door before falling asleep!
Here we are making some more Valentines. For Valentines dinner, all 4 of us exchanged cards that we had made for each other. Jeremy didn’t know we were making cards for him, and we didn’t know that he was making cards for us, so it was all a fun surprise, and a really sweet time to share our notes and love with each other.
Examining muscles. They think they look so grown up and strong, and I think that without their shirts, they look so little!
Playdates! We managed to do a playdate with our friend from church one day, and with a friend from Tanner’s class another day.
Dallin came home with this cute project, He writes his name in almost perfect mirror image, haha.
This picture is to remember the time we ate at Burger King after Tanner’s therapy session. We only went there to enjoy the play place, but after we ordered our food, we realized the play area was closed. 🙁
I think Tanner took this picture of his Daddy.
We tried kids yoga on youtube to help Tanner with his anxiety. It is a channel called Cosmickids, recommended by his therapist, and I love it!! The boys liked it… for about 2 days. They decided it was too much work, and Tanner hates the relaxing and breathing parts. No duh, kid, that’s why we need to be doing this! Ugh, the struggle is real.
Jeremy and I enjoyed two awesome dates in February at the Hormel Historic Home. The first was a jazz swing night, where we got to dance to a live jazz band! It was really, really fun. Jeremy was a super great sport about it, and I was on cloud nine. The second date was the Foodie Throwdown, where 6 teams of chefs cooked for everyone, and we all voted on the best dishes. It was fun to have “George” and “Lillian Hormel” there! The evening was also a celebration of their 125th wedding anniversary.
I was pretty spoiled for Valentine’s day!
Random picture!
Some days in February were just crazy. I came home from a meeting or something and found this. I was kind of impressed with how messy we managed to get the kitchen! It might have been because I doubled my work load in mid-January from 13 to 24 classes, or because I was called as the primary president at church, or because I was volunteering a lot with the SPAMKids Fest.
One night while climbing on furniture, Dallin fell and hurt his eye. He still has the scar to this day that I’m making this post.
Another snow storm! I think this was the last one of the winter season. Jeremy still rode to work on his bike without any issue!
The snow was really deep and wet, and Dallin was hollering to Tanner, “I can’t walk, help me, help me! It’s too deep!” And Tanner came to rescue his little brother. It was really cute because they ended up falling over trying to help each other walk.
I think this is a shot at Jeremy’s work.
Dance party
Jeremy snowblowed, and a few hours later, it didn’t matter.
The next day he worked on the driveway some more, and got tuckered out. I had to wake him up from his nap in the snow.
One night before story time, the boys put on a little play for me. Dallin was the grandma.
Tanner loves reading non-fiction books, including this one. And yes, he wore his hair like that to school. He is very concerned about how his hair looks.
I was crazy enough to audition for a show at the community college. I got a part! I will be a “who” in Seussical the Musical. I was really hesitant to try this because so much is already going on in our lives, but I felt that if I didn’t, I was missing a golden opportunity. It has been really fun practicing the songs with Tanner and Dallin, and teaching them about Dr. Seuss. They are both coming to the show this coming weekend, and I don’t think I’ve ever been this excited to perform for someone, even though I don’t have any lines or solos, I’m really excited for my boys to see this performance and to see their mommy in it!
