February Favorites

Boys and Their Friends 

February is usually the worst month of the year because it is so cold and dreary, but this year the weather was pretty mild with temperatures in the 30's. We had very little snow (only at the very end), and it seemed so much better than most years. That being said, we still were stuck inside for most of the month, so we spent lots of time hanging out with friends. 

Christian and Andrew's best friends, the McDougals, moved last Summer, which was absolutely devastating for all of us. They lived only two doors down, were the same ages, and came from a family of four boys. It couldn't have been more perfect. My boys adored Rubin and Graham, and they played together nearly every day after school. They got along so well, and were the perfect fit for my nerdy boys. When they moved to Lehi, there were many tears shed, and I knew it was the end of a great "era." They only moved 25 minutes away, but I knew it could never be quite the same. I was pretty distraught about the whole thing too. Their mom, Janelle, was one of my only good friends in the ward and was also serving in our Primary Presidency. It was a huge blow to our morale.

Fast forward eight months, and we are still sad they moved, but we have adjusted as best we can. Christian has had a particularly difficult time with it. Rubin was Christian's only kindred spirit, and without him Christian has had a hard year. Since he goes to a magnet school, his church friends and school friends are not the same. Besides that, there is now only one boy his age at church. He gets along fine with most of his class, but he often feels lonely. Luckily, we have tried hard to get the McDougals over often to play. They come over to our house every couple of weeks after school, and Christian and Andrew have had sleep-overs twice at their new house. It isn't as ideal as before, but they look forward to any time they can spend together. 

 Rubin and Christian

Henry, Graham and Andrew playing Harry Potter trivia

Hyrum has also been able to play with friends a little more now since he is getting older. He has a little friend that lives just a few doors down. Caiden is a little younger, but they seem to get along well. Caiden is pretty attached to his mom and his house, so they always have Hyrum over to their house. I don't mind at all because it has been nice to drop him off for playdates so that I can get some stuff done around the house. 

Hyrum and Caiden

Pet Show

I have previously mentioned Hyrum's little stuffed animal that he named Monkey Bunky Wunky. He is still loving his little friend and likes to play with him and sleep by him. For Preschool, they had a "pet show" after they finished their unit on animals. The kids all got to choose a stuffed animal that they got to bring to show to the class and the parents. Hyrum, of course, chose Monkey. 

We made a little carrying case for monkey for the pet show and Hyrum got to tell everyone all about his friend. He showed them Monkey's talents (bouncing on a ball), answered questions about his favorite food (bananas), and told the story of how he got Monkey (a gift from Andrew when Hyrum was born). It was about the cutest thing I have seen. He was so proud of his pet! 

Snow

Christian got a new sled for Christmas, and there was so little snow in January that we never had a chance to use it. Believe me, that wasn't a bad thing! Finally, at the end of February we had a snow storm with enough to try it out. Jonathon took Andrew and Hyrum to a little hill at Andrew's school. They had a blast going up and down the hill.

While the younger kids were sledding, Christian was with the 11 year old scouts snowshoeing. They went up into the canyon and spent the morning hiking around on some trails. Christian is pretty unemotional about everything, so I never get any really good answers about if he enjoyed it or not. He did say that there really wasn't enough snow to merit the use of the snowshoes, but I think he had a good time anyway. He is doing really well in scouts and is progressing toward his Tenderfoot and Second Class ranks. He was also recently made Patrol Leader over the Bobcat Patrol and given a special patch to put on his uniform. I think that made him feel pretty special. 

Valentine's Day

Having all boys means that I don't get a lot of chances to do "cute" things. For example, when they ask for Valentine's cards, they don't want anything mushy or sweet. I like to do homemade cards so that they are unique and fit the boys' interests. This year it was all about video games. They love our Nintendo Switch and play it whenever they get a chance. We have a rule that they can only play video games on Friday and Saturday, so luckily, it is at least a controlled obsession. I thought the cards this year turned out "cute" in a masculine way. Haha! Hyrum got Super Mario Odyssey ones, and Christian and Andrew got Legend of Zelda valentines. They signed them all and added a fun size candy bar when they gave them out to their classes. They were pretty thrilled!

Netflix "Bingeing"

Jonathon and I have been exhaustingly busy for the last year or so. It seems like we go go go constantly. On the rare evenings that we are both home, we like to spend time together. After the kids are in bed though, we are so tired that often we just want to sit and relax. We have started bingeing on television shows. And when I say bingeing, what I mean is that we watch three or four episodes per week (usually 2 episodes, twice a week). People always laugh when I describe our "bingeing," because it is ridiculously slow, but it has actually been a lot of fun to spend common time together and have something to discuss. 

Our first binge show was "Murdoch Mysteries." It is a show that airs on Canadian television. My Primary President, Elizabeth Smith, got us hooked on it. I like to describe it as "Bones" of the early 20th century.  It follows a detective, William Murdoch, in 1900's Toronto. He and his love interest (Julia Ogden, the city coroner) solve mysteries using new inventions and techniques. They also meet a lot of famous names of the day like Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, Ponzi, Mark Twain, etc. We enjoyed the historical insights, even if a lot of it was fictional. There was a bit of a liberal agenda with some of the issues that they tackled, but the writing and characters were good enough to let that slide. They are currently on season 11 of the series, but we were able to borrow all the previous seasons from Elizabeth. It took us 9 months to get through all of them, but we eventually did and were sad when it was over. 

Our current binge show is "Madame Secretary" on Netflix. Nathan and Emily got us interested in this one. We are only on season 2, but we have really enjoyed it. We learn a lot of politics and geography when we watch it, but sometimes it can be a bit intense. After we finish an episode, we find ourselves having deep conversations about policy and world affairs. The writing on Madame Secretary is so good and Tea Leoni is fabulous in the lead role. We often find ourselves laughing out loud at the witty humor and sitting at the edge of our seats during the intense scenes. It has been a much needed outlet during this busy period in our lives.

Keto Flu

My brother and sister-in-law got us interested in the ketogenic diet awhile ago. It is a low carb diet that's goal is to get your body into ketosis. Ketosis is when your body is burning fat for energy instead of glucose. One of the benefits of the diet is losing weight, but a lot of people also feel increased energy, decreased appetite, and an overall feeling of well-being. We did it quite successfully a couple of years ago, but it was hard to maintain so we fell off. We decided at the beginning of the year to start again. The holidays were hard to eat healthy, and we were experiencing major sugar cravings. We knew that low carb would break those cravings quickly. We jumped in with both feet and did great for 2 or 3 weeks. Then I decided to cut a few more carbs for better weight loss. The keto flu is a fairly normal side effect when you first start a low carb diet. It takes a little bit of time for the body to adjust to burning fat, so I wasn't worried when I started feeling a bit yucky. I was light-headed, dizzy at times, and lacking energy in a big way. I did a lot of research, and it all said that my electrolytes were probably off, as the diet tends to flush out a lot of water. I tried really hard to get my electrolytes back to normal by eating extra salt, taking a magnesium supplement, and trying to eat potassium rich foods like avocados.

 My efforts came a little too late though, and I was feeling terrible. When I started having crazy heart palpitations, I started to worry. I was frustrated because I was enjoying the control over cravings and the level blood sugar that had, but having a pounding heart and being so tired I could hardly get up in the morning was not good. I finally went to the urgent care one night. My blood pressure was crazy high (145/90 when it is usually 100/60) and my heart rate was in the 140's. They sent me directly to the E.R. I got rushed to the front of the waiting list, and had an EKG. It showed that my heart was in tachycardia, but nothing else seemed to be wrong with it. The doctors performed a whole bunch of tests and monitored me for a couple of hours and then sent me home. The only thing that they could find was that my potassium levels were a little low. Apparently, some people are really affected when their electrolyte levels get thrown off, and I was one of them. I went off the diet immediately, and started to feel much better within about a week. I had a good consult with our family physician, and he said that my symptoms can sometimes happen with the keto diet, and if I wanted to do it again, I would just need to be proactive about my electrolytes and not let them get out of whack. He said that my symptoms would have probably gone away once my body was keto adjusted, but he understood why I was nervous. It was scary for a few days, but luckily, everything is good again.... except that $300 bill from the E.R. Blah!

While I was so so sick for a week, Jonathon spent a lot of time making meals and taking care of the kids. I mostly slept and laid in bed because my energy stores were so depleted. I found another new show on Netflix called "When Calls the Heart." I fell in love with it. It is a Hallmark series, so it is wonderfully clean and so sweet. The main characters, Jack and Elizabeth, are so cute together. There were only 3 seasons of that one, so I finished it pretty quickly. 

And that was February in a nutshell.