Since I teach students from China now, we celebrated Chinese New Year for the first time this year. I made a Chinese dinner and we learned some facts about Chinese New Year. The food was yummy. Maybe next year I'll be more prepared and we can do some other fun things too.
Winter finally came to Sherwood in February and we had two small snow storms! We wound up with one late start and two cancelled school days. Spencer was not happy about any of them and refused to play in the snow at all. Mason was super excited and had a great time even though there was only a tiny bit of snow. Kiki didn't last long in the snow and spent a long time just watching from the roof of our back porch.
Alan ran his 12th marathon in Phoenix on February 8th. He had a good time visiting Glen and Rachel (our long-time friends from BYU) and Marc. Sadly, he didn't run as well and he wanted to though. He had trained really well so that was disappointing. The boys and I kept ourselves busy with a birthday party for one of Mason's preschool friends, a basketball game, and seeing The Lego Movie 2 in the theater.
This was the first year both boys needed Valentine's for their classes. I guess it will probably be the only year since Spencer is probably about finished with class valentines. I had always wanted to try melting crayons in silicone molds and the boys liked the idea of making Lego mini figure crayons. I only had one mold though so it took forever to make 36 crayons. They turned out cute and Spencer and Mason were happy with them.
I was happy with the way our family Valentine cards turned out.
Mason was SUPER excited for his preschool Valentine's party. I don't know what they did besides eat waffles for lunch and make a heart-shaped sun catcher. He was thrilled with the handful of Valentine cards he got from his preschool friends.
Spencer made his own Valentine box out of Legos this year. It was small, but turned out cute. Like usual, he came home with way too much candy!
My Valentine gave me these beautiful flowers.
After a yummy bbq chicken and veggie fondue dinner, we played some minute-to-win-it games with conversation hearts. Alan and Spencer get really competitive with those games. :)
Spencer participated in and won his school's Geography Bee towards the end of the month. He won by knowing the capital of Iceland. I wouldn't have known that! Winning his school bee qualified him for an on-line test to determine who would compete in the State Bee in March. We had to wait a month to find out, but Spencer did qualify for the state bee!
My funny breakfast buddy:
Kiki discovered the linen closet.
Progress on our neighborhood playground - so exciting!
February was the last month of basketball for Spencer and Alan. They wound up winning about half of their games this season. Spencer improved his skills and had fun so it was a good season. Mason found a buddy to play with during one game.
Our 2nd snow storm came at the end of the month. Mason played in the tiny bit of snow for awhile and then we made the heart sun catchers we had never gotten around to before Valentine's day.
This boy likes the "Car's eye guys" almost as much as Spencer did. Spencer loved the racers, but Mason mostly likes the spies and bad guys. Haha!
Spencer participated in Oregon's Battle of the Books (OBOB) for the third time this year. And I coached again. Spencer had high hopes since his team was the top team at the school both of his previous years, but it didn't turn out that way this year. Try as I might, I could not motivate some of his team members to read. Spencer read most of the 16 books three times each to try to make up for their lack of enthusiasm, but it wasn't enough. Spencer was crushed when they lost. He was really sad all day and it was hard for me to see him so disappointed after putting so much effort into it. He was mostly recovered by the next day though and was able to cheer on the team that beat him in the school finals. Tough lessons.
