Why It's a Bad Idea to Sleep in Church and Other February Fun

Everyone knows that sleeping in church isn't exactly right, but at one point or another we've probably all been guilty of doing just that.  I'll share later how Samantha learned for herself why falling asleep in church isn't such a good idea. First though, a quick recap of February and the many fun happenings the shortest month of the year brought to our family.

Why yes, that is a big square of missing carpet in our family room! Due to an unfortunate incident involving spilled milk (but no crying) and the resulting odor of said milk, I became desperate enough to actually take a box cutter and remove a six foot square portion of our carpet and the pad underneath. The smell was finally gone but the only solution for the missing carpet was to replace the carpet in the entire downstairs! Since that was a project we had planned on doing at some point anyway, it wasn't such a big deal. The hardest part was finding a carpet place we liked and choosing the right color.

Also, it wasn't fun moving all the little things that are in and on the furniture in those rooms. The carpet installers moved all the big stuff but we had to do our part beforehand and clear everything off shelves, clean out under our bed, and generally make their job as easy as we could. The big day dawned and the friendly carpet guys arrived and wasted no time moving furniture and tearing out the old stuff. We love our new carpet; it's really soft and silky and, best of all, there's no longer a square of concrete at the bottom of our steps!

Our Stake sponsored a semi-formal dinner and dance for the Priests and Laurels this month and Madison and Emily were both really looking forward to attending. Instead of bringing dates to the event, the youth were paired up with their date for the evening when they arrived that night. Both of our girls had a great time and were lucky enough to be matched with some really nice young men for the night.  We're always happy when our kids have fun things like this to go to and are so grateful they have such wonderful leaders who plan memorable activities for the youth of our Stake.

Emily with her date Owen

Madison and her friend Katelyn with their dates. Madison and Michael, her date for the night, kind of hit it off. They've kept in touch and have seen each other again since this evening.

For our Valentine's Day dinner I promised Jared this crazy seven-layer steak sandwich that he saw on Facebook. You start with a bread bowl, scoop out the insides and fill it with steak, cheese, sautéed onions, bacon, spinach, more cheese, another steak, and then put the top on the bread bowl. You let that all hang out in the fridge for a few hours and then wrap the whole thing in foil and bake it. This was definitely unlike anything I've made before and honestly I probably won't make it again. It was fun to make, and pretty cool to see when it was finished, but not my favorite meal ever. Heart shaped carrots and a nice green salad to rounded out the meal. We don't usually have a special dinner for Valentine's Day all as a family but the holiday fell on a Sunday this year so that's what happened. I actually kind of liked celebrating a day devoted to love with those I love most!

Most Sunday mornings in our house at least one girl is stressed because she has "nothing to wear to church" despite having many lovely dresses and skirts in her closet. Some Sundays I'm the stressed out girl! On Valentine's Day this year it was Samantha. She needed something Valentine-y to wear and nothing already in her closet would do. It's a good thing she's a creative girl who is willing to work for what she wants. It didn't take her too long to sew herself a new Valentine-y skirt to wear to church that day!

Here she is at church in the finished product. It did take a little coaching and guidance from me, especially the waistband which she shirred by using elastic thread in the bobbin, but overall this was her own creation!

It's been a mildly snowy winter and we received a surprise snowfall on President's Day that gave us a chance to use our new snow blower, throw snow at each other, and write messages on car windows. I'm pretty sure the schools here have used up all the snow days they have built in to the schedule so hopefully there won't be too much more snow this year. Thank goodness spring is just around the corner!

Here's where you can see why it's a bad idea to fall asleep in church - your usually serious older sister might decide to doodle on your face. Samantha is lucky it was just some cute little stars by her eye - Madison could have decided to draw anything and Sam would probably have slept through it!

The last weekend in February my brother Ben, his wife Sarina, and their daughter Lizzy came for a visit. It's always so nice to have family stay with us and it was especially sweet for me to see how much fun our girls have with Lizzy. It's different but good to have the ability to see aunts, uncles, and cousins with a little more regularity now and it warms my heart to see the girls fit right in with their extended family. 

On our bonus February day, Leap Day, we took the two youngest into DC to see the Wizards play the 76ers at the Verizon Center. It was fun to be there with them and to meet Ben and Sarina at the game. I especially appreciated that they were able to answer all of Samantha's basketball related questions because I mostly go to these things so I can eat cotton candy. When we've gone to basketball games before it's been to see DC's WNBA team the Mystics play. There's definitely more fans at Wizards games and our seats were not nearly as good as they have been for WNBA games. Still, there's nothing like being in a big sports arena, cheering for the home team, and eating junk food!

We packed a lot into twenty-nine days - two birthdays, two visits from out of town guests, two snow days, one new to us car, Valentine's Day, one temple trip, one night at the ballet, two college acceptances, lots of names indexed, and one successful diet (8 pounds down!) And that was our February; not bad for the shortest month of the year!