February

Before I started this post, I checked the little journal I keep on my phone to see if I had recorded any noteworthy activities in the month of February, and there were a few.

First, I noted that I was still having a hard time forgiving my neighbors for chopping down the big, beautiful tree that was the only thing I really liked about the street on which we live--apart from our neighbor, Jimmy the Greek, who is just a gem. How could they do such a thing!? Why wasn't I consulted?! I have to wonder...if trees could scream, would our neighbors have been so cavalier about cutting theirs down? (Maybe, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.)

Secondly, I noted that Eve started to motorboat/spit at me when she was hungry. Which says a lot about her personality; she's not really one to complain, she'd rather find more entertaining ways of getting our attention.  Along those same lines, she discovered the thrill of yelling: yelling to join in the fun with her brother and sister, yelling to drown out the sound of a piano lesson, yelling to break the silence during an awkward pause in Relief Society... what a special girl. In spite of all her yelling and spitting, she really is the dearest, sweetest baby, definitely more cuddly and smiley than either Charlie or Antonia at her age.  It's hard not to love a baby who rarely cries, and only whimpers and moans when she's distressed (which isn't very often.) When we made the decision to "sleep train" her at the end of January, I had geared myself up for the mental anguish of listening to her cry, at least for a couple of days (it took 4-5 days for both Charlie and Antonia.) But Evie, bless her heart, went down that first time with just a few minutes of whimpering and then found her thumb and she was good to go. And other than a few isolated instances since that day, putting her to sleep has been like a magical dream come true.

And the third thing I had recorded in the phone journal (heaven help me if I ever lose this phone!) were the events that transpired when Will and I tried to recreate our first Valentine's Day together on the 15th anniversary of that event. The facts were these:

On February 14th, 1997, Will and I went to the Olive Garden as boyfriend and girlfriend (giggle, giggle.) We were teenagers, but we were classy.  Flash forward to 2012, when we were discussing our dinner plans for Valentine's Day, and we realized it had been exactly 15 years to the day since soup, salad, and breadsticks had sealed our love forever. Also, and I can't really emphasize this enough, we realized that we had an Olive Garden gift card.  We engaged our babysitters (Lori and Sean, who would then switch places with us and we'd watch their kids while they went out.) We drove to Olive Garden at the early hour of 5:00. A romantic dinner at Olive Garden, surrounded by the same fake vines and faux stucco which had sheltered us in our fledgling courtship, seemed to be written in the stars...until we got there and discovered that the wait would be an hour and forty minutes. What the what? Were all the teenagers in Las Vegas trying to have dinner at Olive Garden on Valentine's Day? We'll never know, because we left and went somewhere else. (Sadly, it was a restaurant for which we had NO gift card.)

So in honor of that first V-day 15 years ago and those two crazy kids who thought they were being so fancy by going to Olive Garden, here's a picture of Will and I on prom night, 1997, another time when we thought we were so fancy :)

I've mentioned to a few friends that in high school
I was a little bit, um, fluffier than I am now,
and no one believes me. See for yourself.
Will, on the other hand, was just adorable. 

The final journal entry from February: One morning I got kind of desperate to keep Eve entertained during a piano lesson, so I put her in Antonia's doll stroller (buckled in, of course) and had Antonia "take her for a walk" (push her around the house.) It bought me ten minutes, and nothing bad happened. And that's all I have to say about that. Now enjoy the rest of the pictures from the month of February.

Charlie's cartwheel

Antonia's forward roll

Classic Will and Eve facial expressions

Every kindergartner made a poster of 100 household objects
to celebrate completing 100 days of school. 

Blinged-out Antonia

Charlie was the king of Valentine's Day. Or something.

Another picture from my high school days,
this has only been included for the sake of awesomeness.