Ever since Emma got her cute little moped for Christmas all the girls have had so much fun taking turns going scootering around the neighborhood.  It didn't matter that there was still snow on the grass or that the weather was a bit chilly.  The girls are always all smiles when they get to ride the moped.  Madeline has had so much fun riding with the big girls.  She does a great job at standing on the foot rest and holding onto the handlebars.  It is pure joy to watch these girls have fun outside in the winter. ​

I love it when Madeline wears her sunglasses around the house.  She loves to play dress-up and will usually grab the glasses and purse first.  It doesn't even matter if it is sunny in the house.  She just loves those pink and silver sunglasses.

I love how goofy Andrew is and every once in a while I get a glimpse of that in real life.  Today he sent me a picture of him from school. He is confident and not afraid to just be silly.  That is how he has always been.  I love this kid!

February brings about all kinds of crazy weather.  Sometimes we get random warm 70-degree days and sometimes we get extremely cold days.  Today was one of those rare days where the temperature actually fell to -2F with a real feel of -17F.  

Andrew came home with the coolest shirt from German NHS.  Of all the shirts he has collected in high school, this might be one of my favorites.  

For Valentines this year Mike made a pancake breakfast for all of us and had chocolates and flowers for not only me but for Abby and Emma as well.  He got Madeline a little koala bear.  Each of the kids got a fun card in the mail from Grandma Anne with a five-dollar bill folded into the shape of a heart.  They all thought that was the coolest.

Both of the boys decided to join their Rapids swim club and head to Phoenix, AZ for a swim meet at lower elevation.  They had a great time even though the temps outside were a bit colder than expected.  Since the pool was outside they had to work hard to stay warm in between events.  Nevertheless, it was a great experience for both of the boys.

I volunteered to put together a website for the high school swim team this year.  I was really happy with the way it turned out and hope that it will be helpful to the coaches, swimmers, and parents.

I love the view of the mountains from our living room window.  This morning the sunrise was gorgeous and you could still see the moon in the sky.  

It was a cold and snowy month, but I still had such a blast running with my Striders friends - Caryn, Dionne and Harley.  I couldn't ask for better friends and running mates. 

Madeline is such a busy bee and so entertaining.  She always keeps me on my toes.  One of her favorite things to do with me is make and eat chocolate chip cookies.  I caught her trying to sneak more cookies from the pan one day we made them. She is pretty clever and sneaky.  She also loves to pretend to type on her own keyboard.  She says she is working.  

Today was such a momentous moment when I turned in Peter's Eagle binder to the scout office with my friend Emily who was turning in her son's binder.  Hallelujah....we are officially done with scouts!!!

Madeline has changed so much since she turned 2 years old back in September. She is now 25 lbs. and 36 inches tall at 2 1/2 years old. Her hair is still super curly and adorable.  She will still wear baby headbands and will usually want to pick them out herself. One of her favorite headbands is the hot pink flower. Sometimes when I try and fix her headband she will say, "No, I fix it." She is becoming very independent. We tried pigtails for the first time and she was able to sit still long enough for me to put them in. She just looks so cute in pigtails. She will sometimes ask specifically for pigtails now. Even though she is moving away from the baby stages, she still sucks her thumb when she is tired or nervous and loves to do so while holding one of her 
favorite pink blankets. She has two pink crocheted blankets that she loves because she can poke her fingers in the edge and wrap her fingers in and out of the tiny holes.  

Madeline talks so much now. Madeline is simply the smartest little 2-year-old ever. Her vocabulary is so extensive. She talks in simple sentences and she knows exactly how to communicate what she wants. Lately, she has been trying to talk to Alexa on our Amazon Echo Dot to tell her to play Madeline's playlist. Alexa doesn't quite understand Madeline just yet.  Madeline loves to tell us stories and sometimes it is just jibber jabber but most of the time we can understand what she is saying. Sometimes her stories consist of random thoughts one after another. I think it is her way of telling us about what she is experiencing. Madeline loves to talk on FaceTime with Grandma  Anne and Grandpa Franz. Every time Grandma picks up, she always asks for Grandpa too.  Her favorite time to talk to them is before she goes to bed.  She loves to go and cook in her little kitchen and then bring the food to the iPad so that they can pretend to eat it.  It's hilarious.  Madeline will often copy things we say and loves to call us "sweetie" or "sweetheart." She loves to say hi to people in the store and waves goodbye to people when we leave. When we change her diaper and it's a stinky one, she will often say, "I know, I know..." Back in December she had the worst diaper rash that lasted for 4 days. It was bad enough that for quite some time she would get nervous when we would change a dirty diaper. She would calm herself by saying, "No diaper rash." Poor girl.

Madeline is still a great eater.  She loves breakfast and lunch but is not the best eater at dinnertime.  Her favorite breakfast is cereal and fruit. She loves LIFE, Cheerios, and my homemade 
granola, which she calls, "grabola." She loves peanut butter and honey sandwiches for lunch. She loves the circle babybel cheese and fruit leathers most as snacks during the day. Madeline's 
favorite treats are lollipops and cookies. We just introduced her to lollipops but only give them to her as special treats. Madeline still prefers to drink milk over any other drink and will willingly drink water. Overall, she is a pretty good eater and will eat all fruits, peas, carrots, corn, broccoli, yellow peppers, some pastas, chicken, pork, and salmon but doesn't usually like beef or hot dogs. Madeline is great at using her spoon and fork and still uses her hands for some things. I'm not sure where she learned it but one day I saw her eating her blueberries by sucking them up with only her mouth like an elephant would with its trunk. It was kind of hilarious. Sometimes when we are eating together Madeline will knock my cup with her cup and say, "cheers." Emma taught her how to do that. It doesn't just stop with cups though. Sometimes she does cheers with her bowl or plate as well.  At dinnertime, which isn't really her favorite meal, she always tries to be done way before her food is actually gone. She loves to tell me..."All done. I want to take a bath, brush teeth, get jammies on, and go to bed." She is such a smart girl.

Madeline has really taken an interest in coloring. She loves to color with crayons, pencils, markers and colorful pens. She is often found stealing the girl's erasable pens from their desk drawer. Sometimes she will draw in a coloring book but her favorite thing to do is to draw on a blank piece of paper. She mostly draws scribbles and repeating circles. Madeline loves all kind of toys. She loves stuffed animals and usually has quite a few in bed with her when she sleeps. She also loves playing with the Little People and the Lego Duplos. Her favorite Little People characters are the princess ones. She carries them around everywhere she goes. Her latest favorite toys are the mini princess clip dolls. She usually asks to sleep with one when she goes to bed. Of course, she still loves her Little Einstein dolls and was so excited when we found Quincy who had been lost for over a month.

Madeline loves to play. She begs us to either pull her across the floor on the blanket or play duck duck goose with her. She also loves it when we chase her around the house. She will say, "chase me." It is surprising how fast she is. Madeline loves to play in the nursery at church but went through a month where she hated it and cried when we took her. Once I started being more consistent with church nursery and the club daycare she quickly became ok playing with the other kids until I returned.  

Of all the things Madeline knows how to do, she amazes me with how well she can sing the songs I have sung to her since she was a baby. She doesn't just know some of the words...she knows all the words. She can sing so many songs all the way through. Now when we are getting ready for bed sometimes I will start to sing to her and she will put her finger up to my mouth and say, "Shhh..." because she wants to sing to me. It is cute and kind of funny. 

Madeline still loves books. Her favorite books are: Bear Hunt, Little Blue Truck books, Mr. Gumpy, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, If You Give a Pig a Party, Eric Carle's Head to Toe book, Pinkalicious, Goldalicious, Curious George and the Chocolate Factory, Curious George Feeds the Animals, Curious George and the Dinosaur Museum, and the Mother Goose book.

Living in a house full of technology, Madeline falls right in line with the other kids and not only knows how to work the iPad but she loves it all too much. She loves to watch movies on her iPad and on the big TV in the basement. Her favorite movies are: The Heffalump Movie, Mary Poppins, Boss Baby, and Incredibles 2. When she is in the basement she will take all the pillows off the couch and make a big pile on the floor and jump from the couch to the floor.  She reminds me of how fun life can be from the eyes of a 2 year old.

​There’s only one Boy Scout Camp that has Ice Climbing in the World, and it happens to be in our neck of the woods.  After one of the coldest nights camping, the conditions were perfect for ice climbing.  Peter and his friend Josh were able to get into a session and roped up for some hard work and scary climbing!  While it doesn’t look steep or hard, ice climbing is incredibly difficult.  It requires upper body strength, lower body strength, and a keen sense of adventure.  At first, it was really hard to learn how to dig into the ice with the ax and the crampons.  After a couple of goes at the wall, Peter was able to climb up some pretty challenging walls of ice.  It was a lot of fun and crazy to see.  This was definitely a cool experience at the Scout Freezerie.  

Emma, Peter, and Andrew swam in their second meet of the club season at the CMA Valentines meet at Cheyenne Mountain High School.  Since Emma turned 13 last month she was bumped up to swim with the older kids this time.  One of the things about the older kids events are the elimination of many of the smaller 50 yd events.  There weren't too many options in the 100yd events for today and so Emma only swam in the 100 freestyle race.  She was way more confident during this meet than she was during the last meet.  She did well, swimming the first 50 yards extremely well.  Her second 50 yards was a bit slower because she swallowed some water on the second lap.  Still, she was able to knock out a time of 1:35.73.  Way to go Emma!

Peter swam the 100 butterfly and the 100 freestyle.  He went out too fast for the first lap and ended up losing a bit of steam on the second lap.  That's usually how it goes with the butterfly.  It's just a tough event.  His time was 1:15.31.  He did really well, however, on his 100 freestyle.  He got a new PR with a time of 1:05.21.  It was so fun to see Peter PR in the freestyle and to also try the butterfly event.  Most kids don't volunteer to swim in that event. 

Andrew swam the 100 freestyle and the 200 breaststroke.  He wasn't feeling well at all today and his back was bothering him. His times were still decent though.  He swam the 100 freestyle in 58.81 and the 200 breaststroke in 2:54.83.  I'm so proud of Andrew for pushing through it.

This year Emma decided that she wanted me to make her a fancy cake like I did for Madeline's birthday.  She looked at a couple of ideas and came up with a Paris themed cake.  I went to work trying to figure out what I would need and spent 2 days prepping and decorating the cake.  It definitely was a team effort to make this cake.  I did all the prep work and when it was time to finally decorate the cake, Mike helped with the actual drawing on the fondant pieces.  We all think it turned out so cute.  It was not just a cute cake but it was also extremely delicious.  Everyone just loves the marshmallow fondant. The kids finished the cake by the next day. Wow!

For gifts Emma wanted some more clothes as well as a yoga mat and weights.  I found some adorable new outfits for her Emma at Athleta this year.  She got a new pair of black warm up pants, two fun shirts, and a cozy sweatshirt.  I also found an adorable necklace with a little runner girl.  She LOVED that. From her grandparents she got a reversable yoga mat and weights.  She was beyond thrilled with all of her fun gifts.  Even though it was only a family birthday this year Emma got some fun things from some of her best friends.  Natalie gave her a pink fuzzy pillow and Ava gave her a cute little dog stuffed animal.  Emma is so lucky to have such nice friends.