Random February

 Almost every Sunday recently Catherine's friend Talia has been inviting her over to hang out after church. Sometimes Elise and Aaron get to go as well. This particular week they made cookie dough with the intent to deliver Valentine's cookies to someone. Despite Catherine's tweenager scowl, they had a great time making cookies for the missionaries:

An illustration of the giant, gaping difference between Young Men leaders and Young Women leaders:

Elsa (Joanna), Anna (me), Marshmallow (Julia), and Sven (Diana)

All ready to go deliver a birthday singing telegram to one of our YW.

Also including our older class president, also named Julia.

Want to know what the YM did for Seth's birthday? Nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a text. Does that bother me? Nope. Do I think this is one scenario where the YW could learn a lot from the YM? Absolutely. 

Speaking of YW, one of my favoritist YW got a cake decorating kit for Christmas and asked if she could come get some training. February was the perfect month for this since we had two birthdays. She did a fantastic job on Elise's unicorn cake! Plus we made plans for a cake decorating class for all the girls in our YW group. Summer is not a big fan of pictures, so I snapped one of her hard at work instead:

And, speaking of people who hate getting their pictures taken, Timmy came over and gave my kids a cupcake decorating class:

The most adorable otter cupcakes you've ever seen:

The one one the left is coming for you.

Be afraid.

I really don't know how we won the 'Uncle Timmy lives 15 minutes away' lottery. All the little Blood cousins adore him and would be thrilled to be in our position. Elijah in particular adores Timmy and is constantly asking where Timmy is. Lately when we pull into our neighborhood, he'll start screaming, "No Lijah's house! Go Timmy's house!!!" I keep offering to send Elijah over as a practice foster child, but Timmy just doesn't seem super interested for some reason. 

Being a homeowner means doing exciting things like digging giant holes under your sidewalk. Why? Well, because 20 years ago the HOA planted sycamore trees three feet from the sidewalk. Guess what? Sycamores get big. REALLY big. And they have giant roots that lift up sidewalks. But despite the fact that the HOA put in these trees, it is the individual homeowner's responsibility to deal with the damage the trees have done to the sidewalks. So this is Jon, tunneling under our sidewalk to attempt to remove the giant root that lifted our sidewalk up an inch or two:

The best part of all this is that our giant pile of dirt has been heaven for Elijah and for Bennett (our neighbor boy). They're out there literally every day, mostly undoing the digging that Jon has done. I've always wanted a giant dirt pile in our yard for the kids to play in, but Jon is not a fan of all the muddy shoes and clothes. 

And, finally, some more pictures from co-op (which we are still loving!):

Aaron doing needlework

Me teaching my STEM art class (Elijah refuses to attend his class so he's with me)

The only co-op class Elijah will attend without me:

Food art!

We're so glad we have this awesome co-op this year!