"I love you like an animal loves chapstick."

February has been a fury of visiting and visitors, snow, preparations, and family. Lexi and Lyla have been traveling along joyfully with us, Lexi singing to herself about everything and saying hilarious things to Lyla to make her laugh (see blog title).

The beginning of February brought us to Nebraska for a surprise weekend with Eric's family. His dad had a birthday and since we forgot to send him a card, we figured we should make up for it by driving through the night and bringing his only two grandkids to visit him and hand him the card in person. ;-) While in the fabulous flat state of beef and corn, we checked out the local museum where all the Nebraska wooly mammoths reside. Lexi and I (residing in the "land of Lincoln" most of our lives), were pretty much in awe and Lexi wanted to bring one home with us. I told her our car was too small. It is.

 

We returned home just in time to clean the house really fast and welcome my mom and sister Molly from Mexico. They stayed with us for a week to visit and so that Molly could go audition for a dance scholarship at the college she is planning to attend this fall in Michigan. My family also tends to attract more family, (which is why my very tall and handsome brother is lounging in this picture as well) and almost every evening we had at least five extra people eating with us since there are current significant others involved as well. Every night was a party. 

Pretty much this post is super boring and the only reason I am writing it is probably so I feel better about having let the entire month slip by without writing about anything. Let's just say with our Saturdays booked all day with our Foster parenting classes, spending the weekends after class out of the state of IL, and having family visit, (not to mention I had a birthday and my mom DID tell me that I'm "getting up there", so blame it on my age?), and working working working to get our basement finished so my sister can have a place of her own and finally unpack (after already living with us for two months), there hasn't been much down time.

So then everyone left, and Lexi got sick.
Automatic, mandatory down time.
I would be lying a little if I didn't say I was kind of glad I had an excuse to see no one and go nowhere.
We watched a lot of kids netflix and ate a lot of dry cheerios. Lyla especially.

Alli tried to cheer sick Lexi up by building a friend in the yard for her to enjoy.

Now everytime I walk by this window in my kitchen, I see THIS DUDE out of the corner of my eye and I think I have a stalker. I literally have jumped in fear about three times before I realize my stalker could be demolished with some hot water and a shovel...

Yesterday, he fell over. Lexi told me he died.

And now Lexi is better and making her happy messes again while singing merrily. 

Fortunately for Lyla, with Lexi laid up sick for a few days, she had nothing better to do with no one to chase and decided to give walking a try. So now she walks a little bit and crawls really fast the rest of the time. :-)

Also, I saw a massive dog today with some killer hippie dreads that hung all the way to the ground. The most hilarious part about this is that the massive and enormously flamboyant hippie dog was being walked by an extremely respectable looking, well dressed middle aged woman. Yup. Mind blown. 

Also, think before promising your child you will go to the library before checking the weather. Pushing 100+ pounds of kids, books, and stroller through slush snow for a mile and a half there and then back again in the freezing wind is not heroic. It's stupid. But at least now we have some new books to read, including, but not limited to, Tiki Tiki Tembo, Ladybug Girl, three Toot and Puddles books, and Chester's Way. I sense a cozy afternoon in my very near future. 

And this is (finally) The End.