Third Person: February

February has flown by and with the photo bonanza below you'll understand why. In between all the fun and visitors we've been under a germy dark cloud, with GG having strep ~~once~~ twice (just confirmed an hour ago, good grief), me having strep ~~twice~~ three times, Matt having pink eye, and Boo having a nasty skin outbreak. The pediatrician said he wished that schools would just close for a week so everyone could quarantine themselves. I know we would all benefit from getting out of dodge and spending a week somewhere warm and sunny. Alas that is not in the cards so we'll have to settle for a mass disinfection party. How many gallons of Clorox does it take to fill a tub full of toys?

Germs aside, the month started off on a high note with our annual Super Bowl get together with friends from across the upper Midwest. The big kids are getting SO big, it's crazy. Also crazy was that our house was able to contain seven kids under 4 and 8 adults (plus two .5's with preggo mamas). Everyone landed on Friday night and on Saturday we took the kids to a nearby place called the Big Backyard. It's a giant warehouse space which houses a playground-sized climbing toy, plus there are balls, trikes, scooters, and big wheels scattered about. Basically you pay $9 to let your monkey children burn off steam. Whether at the park or somewhere like the Big Backyard I always find it fascinating to watch other parents to see how they, well, parent. There's the majority who are trying to keep an eye on their kid so they don't kill themselves or get in a scrap with another kid, but there's a whole other segment who is too busy checking their Facebook updates or Tweeting about how lame their day is to keep an eye on what their kids are doing. There are entire studies and articles now regarding parents who are too busy on their phones to spend time with their kids, and what it's doing to their children. I'm all for letting (forcing) your kid to learn to play on their own but when my kid is getting run over by some other tot whose mommy is totally MIA it makes me nuts. All righty then, stepping off soap box now. After Big Backyard we headed back for afternoon snoozes and on Saturday night the kids had a pajama party and all watched a movie. Well, the 3 and 4 year olds watched the movie, the 2 year olds checked in and out, and Lukas was not interested. The dads headed out to the local watering hole to catch up on old times. Sunday was the big game which none of the moms actually watched (me at halftime "wait, when did it start?"). As per usual there was no shortage of food. It was interesting feeding so many kids three squares a day. Hellllllllooooooooo disposable plates! Everyone scattered on Monday morning and I sent Matt and the kids off to pick up Ralphie (who was vacationing at Grandma's) so I could give the house a much needed once-over. I knew the clock was ticking and by the time they got home the place resembled the pit it was before our crazy weekend.

getting big enough to play games together

showing us his fine work

i'm SMILING already!

three ladies in a tub. we have one of the three boys but i can't figure out how to put little stars over their man-parts

the group!


two tables set up for kiddo meal time. a little post-meal swiffer and all was right with the world

In between taking all of our medication, the rest of the month has been filled with random moments of fun. The weekend after Super Bowl we decided to hang out as a family so we headed off to the Mitchell Park Domes to kill a chilly Saturday morning.