Life Is But A Dream: February Journaling--Here's What's Happening on the Ranch

Here it is, the last day of February, and I have not documented our many adventures per my grand intentions. We even took a vacation this month. Yes, the Merrill family took a vacation! That deserves a blog post all its own, so stay tuned. This one will just be a hodge podge of this and that about our February.

As usual, our recent experiences have been of the up and down variety, a dichotomy of awesome and depressing (but usually somewhere in between). But that's life, huh? We've had some sickness here and there, a lot of hard work, some slowing down and some speeding up of our many responsibilities. But we've also had some successes, such as great test scores showing that the children are making excellent academic progress, Trey getting through several days with no potty accidents, and (my personal favorite) the moment Trey discovered he could see his own reflection in my eyes and tried to poke my eye out while he said, "Is that Trey in there?"

My favorite way to journal our experiences is via pictures, so get ready for a whole slew of them below! I'll begin with a few things about little Miss Coco, whose crafty and artistic side has taken center stage recently. She has been checking out craft books from the library and is simply full of new ideas. It seems like there is a new project every day! She even got me to pull out my ancient sewing machine and teach her how to use it. It was really fun!

First project using the sewing machine!

I bought this machine for $100 in 1990. It's a piece of doo-doo next to the fancy machines they make nowadays. But we managed to get fairly straight seams with marginally uniform stitches. It did the job!

Here she is showing off the cute drawstring bag after it was complete. I love her pink socks, too!

I love the colors and fabrics she chose, and the cute little flower to accessorize!

Have I mentioned Coco's Baking Buddies group? This is a group of her friends that we organized at the beginning of the school year to get together once a month to learn about cooking and baking. We, as moms, take turns hosting it at our houses and choose what to teach and bake. There are six cute girls and they have been having a great time together!

These are the little aprons I made for the girls to wear when they get together for a baking day.

Here is Coco at the Baking Buddies meeting in February. They made sugar cookies and decorated them. This giant cookie she made for a Valentine for Daddy lasted a week!

More fun at Baking Buddies with her pal Ashlyn.

This photo was not taken at Baking Buddies, but it was a cooking project we did at our house with some new friends of ours who we recently met. They are homeschoolers! Their oldest son is Courtney's age, and they have 3 boys and a girl in their family. We are so glad to have met them! We did an art project at their house as well, in which the children learned about collage art. Lots of fun with our new friends!

And now, some fun stuff about the boys in our family!

Goofing off with my phone! We were trying to send a "good night" photo to Daddy at work. :)

Don't be too scared! I know he looks threatening, but he's really harmless. Although, he has been known to shoot those Nerf darts at a poor, unsuspecting sibling from point blank range. Or at a poor, unsuspecting parent. Followed by giggles and a quick escape!

This handsome little devil is the primary reason there are Nerf darts all over the house, including inside the chandelier which hangs in our two-story foyer. I don't know if we'll EVER get that one out!

And guess who is responsible for leaving the Nerf gun in the refrigerator? I imagine the following stream of consciousness happening in a little two-year-old head: "Why does mom have the refrigerator door open to put away groceries when I'm so busy running around the kitchen involved in this tremendously engaging Nerf war from which I cannot easily be distracted? Oh, look! String cheese!" And he promptly drops the Nerf gun on a shelf and forgets all about it, so I find it just like this later on. Ha! I LOVE the everyday surprises of having a little one in the house!

Kisses on a sweet little face!

We had some really COOOOOOOLD days this month; and Avery is demonstrating the best way to stay warm on a cold day. I could do this all day!

And speaking of cold, Chase attended a Scout camp this month called, "The Freezoree." If that doesn't make you want to go, I don't know what would! Here the kiddos practiced setting up the tent before he packed it up. Thankfully, although it was at the end of a week of arctic temperatures, the weather warmed up just in time to make this a pretty pleasant campout for him. Next year, Avery and dad will go along!

And speaking of cold again, we got plenty of snow and the kids were able to build some big snowmen in the backyard while Chase was on his campout. Full size ones!

Cute picture of our little boy. He's eating a cookie during school time.

Another school project. Ha! These two boys were learning about muscle cells in their study of physiology. I'm pretty sure that brothers were intended to learn about the function of muscles in this precise manner.

Avery in his most favorite position: upside down. This kid has his head lower than his butt more often than you can probably imagine. LOVE that crazy guy!