February 2017

I usually start out our monthly updates very similiar "we had a fun month" or "another fun, busy month is in the books" but not this time.  GOOD BYE, FEBRUARY!  To be a short month it sure drug on with endless trips to the pediatricians office, perscpritions, doctors excuses, medicines, lysol, and on.  We have never had a month like this...or illnesses/germs like this, and I hope we never do again.  It started with Dawson bringing the flu home from school.  In the end he, Carter, and Nora Kate all got Influenza Strand B and this was the sickest I had ever seen them.  It was pitiful.  They got the Tamiflu but it was still horrible.  By some miracle John, Clayton, and I did not catch it.  Then before they had really recovered from the flu fully they got strep.  Rough times....I'm thankfully that we usually have very healthy children but this month has taken its' toll on us.  Whew! Goodbye, February!
The month started out great though...my role for PTO (actually called FTO) at Dawson's school was Chairperson for Winter Blast, which is a Winter Carnival they do indoors.  I had a lot of fun helping to organize this event, and it was busy but went really really well.  It was the first Friday of the month!  The kids had a lot of fun there too!  The next morning Dawson had a basketball game early.  John and grandad are coaching his team this year and they're all loving it! I enjoy watching Dawson play because he enjoys it and he's pretty good.  It's wild to think how much he has improved since the first year he played.  This is his third year.  
After the basketball game, John said he wanted to take us to Gatlinburg to stay the rest of the weekend.  It was such a fun, wonderful surprise!  We stayed at the Park Vista Hotel which was so fun! Our room was actually two rooms-one of which had two sets of bunk beds-the kids were in heaven!  The hotel had an amazing view...and, best part-several pools and water slides!  It was perfect for this cold dreary month to get to play inside in the pool!  It was such a wonderful weekend.  The only bad part was that I didn't get many pictures because we were in/near the water most of the time.  We swam and swam and went down the water slides more times than we could count.  Our favorite "trick" was a "quadruple" as the kids called it where me, then Dawson, then Carter, then Nora Kate would all four go down the curvy waterslide together.  So fun, such great memories made.  Clayton LOVES water, so of course he had a great time too! Here are the very few pictures I did get...

This is the beautiful view off our balcony.  I just couldn't get enough of this view. So so pretty.

Something about hotels gets kids excited, and something about being excited makes you dance and make strange faces. haha

Another view from our room.

Walking through Gatlinburg to lunch on Sunday.

As a side note-This was our first time up to Gatlinburg since the wildfires back in November, and it was crazy and sad to see all the destruction.

We really had such an amazing weekend and we were sad to see it come to an end.  The Park Vista was AWESOME!  We plan to go back!

Another Saturday morning, another basketball game.

Our countdown to Valentines Day Chain.

Carter loves counting down and he loves making these chains.

Clayton is always standing in his crib when I go in these days.

Sweet boy!

Carter got these Super Mario magnets back in December and he makes new video game levels on the fridge every day with them.  Love his creativity...and his love for pajamas. :)

Carter LOVES math worksheets...he's begs to do them and is always so proud when he's finished.

swWe had lots of at home time this month due to the illness, so I really tried to take advantage of the time and work with the kids on some things.  Nora Kate has been able to make her bed for a while now, but she needed some lessons on getting all the covers straight, etc.  This day she was really excited to have gotten her bed smoother than usual and asked me to take a picture.

Valentine's Day ended up being yucky because half the people in our house were sick...but not me and Clayton!!  SO, we had NK take a couple Valentine's Day pics of us haha!

Clayton's first Valentines!

You have to watch when he kisses you-it turns in to a bite on your cheek about 50 percent of the time!

We got out the musical table for Mr. Baby this month too and he LOVES it!

When everyone was finally well and we could leave the house, this guy was super excited to be in his carseat-cabin fever anyone?!

Looking so big

Dawson was out of school on a Monday and we headed to the park because it was  pretty mild day.  Carter had fun riding his scooter along the trail.

A few milder days meant we got to eat on the patio-always a hit!

Our president's day project was starting to grow this Donald Trump Chia...it's hilarious!

Loving the milder temps

Team Thunder!

One Saturday after basketball we headed up to Cades Cove-one of our favorite places!  It's easy to forget how beautiful it is where we live!

That's John, Dawson, and Carter racing to the car.

The kids love getting out to check out all the old buildings.  They were really excited in this cabin to go upstairs because it was called "Carter's Cabin"

And more basketball!

sDawson has been doing really well on defense and offense this year!  Proud of my boy!