February in review

OK, the month isn't actually over yet, but it feels like it has been such a long month that I'm ready to just call it done! For the first two weeks we had sick kids. Molly had some difficult nights, but neither of them was sick enough to be worried about - it was just a long stretch of sickness. Elijah especially just seemed to linger in the last stages of his cold for days and days. When they were finally getting better, I started to get sick and then Patrick got it a few days later. Neither of us has been even as sick as the kids were, but it's hard to not be feeling well when you can't really take a break. Patrick has had an extra busy month at work and has had to work some extra weekends and evenings, which makes him really tired and wears on all of us. I was sad that we've had to miss several weeks of church, too, but I certainly didn't want to be spreading our germs around. Thankfully we are both pretty much over being sick now.

The weather around here has actually not been too bad for the past few weeks! It's still cold, mostly, but we've had a number of days that were dry, less windy, a little less cold, and even somewhat sunny. I've been frustrated that we haven't been able to take better advantage of it and get outside - playing outside in February isn't the best idea when you're sick. We got to go out this morning for a little while for Elijah to run up and down the hills in the grass around our building, and it felt really good to be out!

In the little space between when the kids were almost better and when I started to feel sick, we got to do a couple of good things - we took Molly to get her picture taken (at 7 1/2 months instead of 6 months old, but oh well!) and Patrick and I got to out on a date. I was glad that we got the pictures done, and I was excited at how well they came out. Molly has recently become aware of "strangers" - or any adult that isn't Mama or Daddy - and she was a little fussy with the photographer at first, even though Patrick and I were right there. But she got over it well enough to give us some cute smiles and I think we got several great shots. I was also very excited to be able to go out with Patrick. It was fun to be out of the house and just have a long talk and spend some time together, and we're thankful that our friend Carole (she is Patrick's co-worker and just loves the kids) came to play and listen to the monitor so we could have some time away.