Fleeting February

I thought our February was kind of boring with the exceptions of our short trips to the mountains and the beach and Valentine's thrown in the middle and that I didn't take that many pictures since it was a shorter month.  Well, when I started cleaning off my phone and going through the photos, I was a bit shocked that I seemed to have taken more photos than I thought and that our month looked pretty good at least from the pictures.  

Brody, Mattox and I kicked off the month on a particularly beautiful day with a picnic at the park.  The skies were such a beautiful and perfect blue.  Brody tried to climb the big hill beside the playground. 

For most of the time, we were the only people on the playground, but Brody and Mattox enjoyed playing together some.  I just love seeing them play together more and more everyday as Mattox gets bigger.  

Mattox enjoyed riding this little old-fashioned car although his facial expression may not express that in these pictures. 

However, I think these pictures express perfectly how much Mattox adores his big brother Brody. 

I loved the similarity of these pictures.  Brody was a year older than Mattox now, but they both loved sliding with their big brothers. 

Their smiles melt my heart. 

And big brother Brody even helped push Mattox on the swings.  He really did love it although he looks a little overwhelmed in a couple pictures. 

That face in the bottom middle...haha!  

Big brother showing little brother how to go down the big slide...apparently with your eyes closed.  Haha! 

Mattox looked so cute riding the little duck.  He is also a climber so it was no surprise he attempted to climb back up the slide.  

After we played a little, we enjoyed lying on the blanket, reading some books and doing some lessons.  Brody practiced his writing and worked in his activity book.  He loves "doing school work." 

One morning, Brody and Mattox and I were in the drive thru at Dunkin Donuts, and I thought all of those birds were going to attack us.  Haha!  

We had to get some heart shaped doughnuts, of course.  They aren't my favorite doughnuts, but I do like the apple cinnamon filled ones, and the cream filled hearts were pretty good too. 

We went to library storytime.  It was letter C for construction that day.  I loved those little felt construction trucks on the board.  Brody is always so cute and perfectly attentive during the lessons.  He also loves dancing and doing the motions to the songs. 

Now, Mattox is a little rule breaker and loves crawling all around during story time.  We are going to have our hands full with this one. 

Daddy won us a free pizza from Mellow Mushroom on their local facebook page post.  We headed their one Friday night for dinner.  Brody also wanted to show off his "fancy" star tattoo he got one Wednesday night at Zaxby's kids' night.  Mattox's birthday hat arrived in the mail, and I had to try it on him.  He loved it so much and didn't even try to remove it.  That says a lot, trust me.  He also loves getting a hold of big brother Brody's silky blankie. 

I had to capture this rotten mess in action.  He is our "houdini" baby and can escape from any barricade.  He gets himself out of our living room barricade by going through an end table. 

We had to cheer for our Panthers in the Super Bowl! 

We didn't really have a big Super Bowl party, but my dad was visiting, and Evan's neighbor friend, Ryan, wanted to come over because his family aren't big football fans.  I gave him a hard time for showing up in Denver colors, but he insisted it was just his new shirt and nothing was intended by it.  Haha!  We just ate some boneless Buffalo bites and chips.  I think Brody had a sandwich instead.  We were a little disappointed by the game's outcome and how unfairly the game was played.  It definitely seemed like the refs had called the winners of that game before it even started.  It was probably the worst professional football game I have ever watched, but I think our Panthers behaved admirably.  I am not a fan of Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning and never have been.  I don't think he is a great quarterback and only got where he was because of his father.  On the other side, I think our quarterback, Cam Newton, has started an amazing career on pure hard work and determination and natural talent.  Keep watching, folks, because he will go far!  #keeppounding #panthernation 

Brody got a hold of my phone again for more of his silly shots.  I think this was in the hotel room in the mountains when we had to stay inside a lot because of the freezing cold weather. 

We were all a little excited about the little bit of snow on the ground.  It was beautiful falling for several days, but it would just melt during the day and never accumulated much on the ground. 

These boys were my lunch dates while Daddy was working in the mountains.  Here we just walked across the road from the hotel to Bojangles for some yummy fried chicken.  

The second day, Mattox and I shared a plate of bangers and mash.  He had two good sized helpings and probably ate about a quarter of a piece of sausage with a good scoop of mashed potatoes and some broccoli mixed together. Brody was showing the little green frog necklace he got from the Cherokee museum. 

I just love when this song comes on the radio, and I loved the story and meaning behind the song too. 

Our home was filled with much love for Valentine's. 

We got an early Valentine's date night at a "fancy" restaurant. 

Then, we went to a late movie to finally see Mockingjay Part 2 at the cheap theater.  Since we had celebrated Valentine's early, we didn't mind too much spending Valentine's at Target doing our semi-monthly shopping.  Evan enjoyed getting a free pink cupcake from the bakery.  

Our sweet Mattox learned to drink from a sippy cup this month although he doesn't love too and will likely enjoy drinking from a straw like his big brothers. 

We stopped by the park after picking up Evan from school one day.  He was upset he didn't get to go with us before. 

We did library story time twice in one month...yay!  The library wanted the kids to write them "love letters" about why they love the library.  

Random pictures of Brody with his ice cream cone at Chick-fil-a with sprinkles.  Apparently, this Chick-fil-a puts sprinkles on their kids' ice cream cones.  I love the picture of Mattox passed out on the floor.  He just plays so hard and gets so tired, he will go to sleep wherever he is.  Evan designed his first Pinewood Derby car to look like his F-15 Thunderbird. 

Another angle of Mattox going through the end table to escape the living room.  

Mattox got a camo hat at Daddy's work conference for the Carolina Loggers Association.  He also had to be "caged" because he was a wild man in the hotel room. 

I got a little reading done this month.  I finished the Beth Harbison book which was a bit emotional about lost first love and made me nostalgic about my childhood and adolescent years in the 1980s and 1990s.  I decided I needed to read something a bit lighter and more humorous so I picked up Sophie Kinsella's Wedding Night.  My sister-in-law and I had read the Shopaholic series several years ago, and I knew her British humor would be just the ticket.  James Patterson's First Love was a book I had seen on several recommended book lists on Pinterest.  It is way different than Patterson's usual thrillers.  I didn't have a clue until over half the book that cancer was involved in this story.  I just thought it was about two young adolescents embarking on a journey across the country and finding first love along the way.  The story grabbed me as young Robinson's story of suffering through a deadly cancer disease unfolded as did his love for the other main character, Axi.  Robinson had the same deadly cancer that took our precious Grandma Mattie from us, non-hodgkins lymphoma.  I could not discover in my research whether this was based on a true story although it had this name and date at the end of the book that was presumably the main character.  The dates struck me hard as being so significant for me.   We find out almost at the end of the story that Robinson came from Asheville, NC although he had moved out to Washington state to get treated for his disease and just stayed there for Axi.  He finally takes Axi to meet his parents before he dies in his home.  Apparently, Eddie and I were married on his 7th birthday, and he died just a few days after our precious daughter.  The irony of that just hit me kind of hard. 

Brody and I read a lot of level one readers, including another Otis the tractor book, a Pete the Cat book, and some Splat the Cat books.  We read books that used a lot of "at" words because I wanted to begin to work on reading some words.  Brody picked out the "A Home for Bird" book which was really sweet.  

More stage one readers.  We own most of these.  

I added some Dr. Seuss hardback posters to our playroom which I found and loved at the Target dollar spot.  I also started decorating for Mattox's first birthday with his weekly pictures and added all but his last month picture to his first year frame.  

Brody completed all of his Kindergarten activity book, and I was so proud of him.  He is doing so great.  He draws shapes, writes and knows his color words, can draw really well, and can color by number.  This book helped fill in for my lack of sufficiently doing lessons for him lately, but I have got to get on the ball.  He does so many of his own "crafts" these days and is always making something.  He cut those circles and colored them, and even cut out a whale with a smiley face.  He had brought me the whale with a blue water spout that he wanted me to help him glue to the top of the whale which I thought was so smart.  

I loved the page where he drew some things that he can see - a rainbow, hear - birds in a nest, smell - rose, taste - birthday cake (I drew the cake with one candle and he drew the one with many candles), touch - trees.  He came up with those all by himself.  He drew charts for counting objects and measured the length of snakes.  He even worked on some addition problems.  He drew a beautiful picture of our family with only minimal suggestions from me about our eye and hair colors.  I helped him draw Cocoa and our angel Mattie.  He also did some trace the dots pictures.  

And another month has come and gone...