Miri recovering from surgery, Good Food

 This month we tried to bake heart shaped chocolate chips cookies for Valentine's Day. 

Also, it was warm enough that the kids wanted to go swimming. I took them to our community pool. I didn't get in. I hate cold water. But they have reached the swimming ability that I don't have to be in the pool! We started taking walkie talkies with us to contact Jay at home just in case.

This month was also the 3 weeks Miriam couldn't do monkey bars or trampoline or anything that might hurt her surgery site. A student teacher, Miss Sara, prepared special activities for Miri to do during recess so she wouldn't be bored. Miri was pretty sad some of the days, but finally she was able to. Since she was so sore the first day, I figured her abs needed to heal. I wondered if she would be able to do the monkey bars at first. She was perfect! She had a great time, although her big callouses were smaller and so she needed to build them up again. The monkey bar queen continues to reign.  

On a big log on Mount Lemmon

The kids got Texas Roadhouse coupons at school and they loved our visit there.

Those mini burgers were sooo good

I asked the kids to clean the house by 4 p.m. so we could go to Texas Roadhouse. They said, of course! Then I saw this. They explained that they would clean, but also the floor is lava.

 I love this picture of Miri. I'm pretty sure this was the day I was super tired from being sick and a kid was about to get scraped, but we did have a nice time before that.

Wendy had to tie up her dress so she could ride her bike.

I completely lost my voice, so Miri took over reading bedtime books for about 2 weeks. By the end of the 2 weeks, Wendy's reading aloud skills had jumped forward. I guess I needed to just be quiet and she would grow.

In all seriousness, being a mom without a voice was tricky. But it's amazing what we communicated to each other with very few words and motions. We have charts for getting ready for school and chores and I would point at them a lot. 

Do you see any cookies that look like hearts? Kind of?

Theo has good domino skills

Dad got a good box

Fruit is better  in kebab form

An after surgery activity

Homemade bagels because I really wanted them