February, 2018

For whatever reason, February seemed to fly by this year. 

Our chicken flock was cut in half by a combination of hawks or owls and coyotes. Then the ones that survived all but stopped laying. At some point in February, I actually had to buy eggs at the grocery for the first time in five years!

Mr. Fancy cat, such a gentle giant of a cat.

We subscribe to a wine club thing from a winery Ben visited in Chile and it's fabulous. I highly recommend it.

Levi was asked to play in an end-of-season basketball tournament with the 5th grade boys team. So we spent a morning in Sedgwick watching his final games of the season (Levi's #20). That afternoon we went to Herington to watch the A Team from Goessel Jr. High compete for 3rd place at their league tournament. And just like that, basketball came to a screeching halt!

The most snow we got all winter....a very sad reality of how very dry it was all winter.

February also means I made my annual trip to Akron, PA for work meetings. But, lucky for me and my, my dear friend Diana lives there so we got to hang out in the evenings (after my work meetings). This isn't Diana's best photo, but she is such a great host - just days after moving in (but not settled in) to a new apartment she still managed to host me and Anna with yummy cheese, crackers and wine.

And then we took a brisk walk over to fabulous new restaurant in Lancaster, Luca. So yummy.

And the next day it snowed! MCC is such a pretty place, and it seems like it snows each time I'm there.

Later in the day, the snow turned into rain.

Home again, home again, jiggidy-jig... and thank goodness. I like being at home. It's good to travel so you can really feel the comfort of home.

This weirdo photo is of French bread I made that actually turned out and was delicious!

Ben and the boys enjoyed playing basketball at the school on Sunday afternoons at Open Gym.

Valentine's greetings from Levi :-)

I got the pleasure of helping with the Valentines party in 4th grade. We brought the drinks: cheap, easy and sugar-filled Kool-Aid.

After the party, Levi and I stopped by a local pottery shop to purchase something for my work. But these cups really caught my eye. I would like one of each. :-)

And then suddenly, this little boy had a birthday and is now 12. He's still such a sweet boy.

Levi sang in the elementary school spring concert - it was another great performance and full of cute kids!

For Noah's birthday, we let him invite three friends over after school, then I took them to the Newton Rec Center to play basketball and then out to eat. So while Noah and his buddies were busy playing ball, Levi and his friend Mabel got together for a slime making session.

Mabel knows everything about making slime and they made all sorts! Thanks for hosting us Karin!!

Then Levi and I went to pick up the basketball guys and we all went to Applebee's for dinner. This was the best photo I could get of this group...hahahaha.

In the morning, Ben went and got doughnuts for the boys.

That afternoon it was time to go to Wichita for cousin Rylee's birthday party!

It was a fun party and so cool to see how different each painting turned out!

And finally, the family birthday celebration for Noah and Rylee with a DQ ice cream cake, yum!

And then the weather in Kansas just got stupid for a few days. We got ice. Not enough to bring trees down, but enough to make it very dangerous to be out and about.
Sometimes, the boys have ahhhhhmazing fashion. Hahahaha

And since the Winter Olympics were on TV, we decided to host our own version of Schrag Olympics. First event was basketball. We each took turns shooting from designated spots around the room. And of course we kept score, there were prizes at stake!

Then we each had to play the piano,

and the three people not at the piano were the judgy judges.

And finally, a game of Uno was the final "sport."

With cash instead of medals, here's how it turned out. Noah in first, Levi in second, Ben in third and Tina in last...

On our second snow/ice day from work and school we made a big breakfast. French toast, using the homemade bread pictured from above, home grown/made peanut butter, homemade blueberry sauce and fresh squeezed orange juice. It was so yummy.

And, since the weather outside was awful, and I had people traveling in for work meetings, I hunkered down in the kitchen and kept up on work and planned the garden!

The boys went out for a while and played on the ice.

Thankfully, by the next day the roads were cleared of ice so I could get to work for my meetings.

Oh man, we had some yummy food from Mojo's Coffee Bar at our meetings!

I've got this plant growing in our sun room and I just love the texture of the leaves. I stare at them each time I'm in that room.

We got the joy of meeting my cousin Kyle's brand new baby Lillian - Levi loves babies!

And in the blink of an eye, February was over - bring on spring!!