February Fun

Continuing in my rewind of the first half of the year with all our February happenings! Sometimes I do a good job of having the girls' birthday parties near their birthdays and sometimes...not so much. This was a year of a double miss {I blame our trip to NYC so it was totally worth it!} and both girls had their parties late.

We celebrated Paige turning 8! 

She had a tumbling party at the gym where both girls  take classes. 

Sorry not sorry...more Gus cuteness!

Brent surprised me on February 13 with Valentine's flowers!

He loves to keep me on my toes.

We are all obsessed with the littlest of #theSwopeseven!

We went to see Dog Man with friends. This is most definitely not worthy of a separate post as it was...not great. Paige loved it and that's what matters but I maybe read a book for part of it.

Random bits of life!

Little Miss was Marie Curie for their Living History Museum presentation

Fun with friends!

Work coffee catchup ~ Surprise bestie visit ~ Jazzercise!

Drew's {Super Late} 11th Birthday Party!

Well, 3 months after Drew's birthday, we finally celebrated her! For a while, we were waiting for my niece, Blair, to be able to join us and life just kind of got away from us. But I'm so glad we were able to get something on the calendar. Drew had 5 friends come over, and our main adventure was going to see the new Ghostbusters movie {review to come!}. Drew is SUPER into Taylor Swift right now so the party was loosely TS themed.

Snacks with Taylor Swift song titles ha {this was 100% Drew's idea!}

Playing What Do You Meme {but a G-rated version}

Choosing their snacks!

I meant to get a picture of the girls with the movie poster, but I forgot. We were too excited to get back for cupcakes!

Happy {super late} birthday to our favorite 11 year old!!

Living her best party life

Drew really wanted to make smores too,

and they were EXTRA gooey but so delicious!

The girls finished the party with dodgeball and hunter. So fun!

Blair spent the night, so we had to take her home the next day. My sister's family just moved last week, so it was our first chance to see the new digs.

And check out the neighborhood pool!

IT WAS SO COLD.

Per usual, I spent the whole time holding this little guy.

Almost giving the camera a smile here!

He is such a squishable little love bug!!

And everybody loves him!!!

So while it took a long time for us to get this together, I think our girl had an amazing weekelnd!

Soy Sauce

I got scolded by my mother for my lack of blogging...but life is just rolling along and there isn't much exciting happening! I think that's a good thing though - just not creating a lot of content. {grin} We did see Sawyer yesterday for a LONG time at my parents' house - they had 'Cousin Camp' for a few days this week since we are on Spring Break. We hadn't seen the Patnodes in a bit because the last time we got together...the next morning both girls were sick, and I felt so terrible that we might have exposed Sawyer to 2 different viruses! Luckily they were all ok! But now I present...an afternoon with Sawyer a.k.a. Soy Sauce.

When I got there, I immediately took my baby. And everyone laughed because this was predicted. Blair said 'Babs said they better hold him quick before Aunt Allena gets here.' Yup! He was sleepy so I got him down for a nap.

Then he woke up and I kept monopolizing his time.

Then he was tired again and I put him down again for another nap.

I don't know what Drew and Miles are doing in the yard, ha!

I let Pops hold him for a minute!

He's so fat!

And Drew needed some snuggles.

David went to run some errands, and Patty forgot all the pacifiers were in her car, so he didn't nap great and was hard to get to settle without a boob or a pacifier in his mouth. When David got back, Patty put him in a wrap with a paci and he was OUT. I told him he was really rude to make me work so hard for his naps, ha! But seriously being an aunt when all my babies are pretty self-sufficient is amazing. 

So basically no one likes him and he's super neglected. {grin}

Five on Friday

I had several bits of randomness to share, so I thought it was high time for a Five on Friday!

NEW COUCH

After talking about it for over a year, we finally bought our new couch to start our living room redecorating! We've had our previous couch for 16 years, so it was definitely time.

There is still a lot to do to totally revamp the living room - nothing is staying! And with it we're redoing the playroom to 'mature' it up a little bit - it was still very toddler/young kid focused and not a space for teens and pre-teens. It's a little overwhelming but also very exciting.

PERMANENT JEWELRY

I went to a Galentine's party and got my first permanent jewelry! I got 2 bracelets and am loving them. I wear 90% silver-toned jewelry but do throw some gold in there so wanted to have a little of both. I think I want to do a necklace too!

STANDING DESK

I've been hearing for over a year now that 'sitting is the new smoking' and have felt really bad about how much I sit every day. We've only had our office furniture for a few years, so we aren't in the market to revamp the office, but I wanted to find a way to stand more throughout the day. So I bought a little contraption off Amazon that enables me to stand and work during the day. I'm aiming for 30 minutes out of every hour and some days are better than others, but I'm definitely standing more throughout the day, yay! {Writing this post standing too!}

TRIFLE

You know what's super fun when you're selling over 1,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies? Driving over a case of them!

Crushed boxes, ugh.

But when the world gives you lemons, make lemonade...or a trifle with cookies! I googled recipes made with Girl Scout cookies and found so many options. I made this to take to book club, and it was absolutely delicious!

SMILING SAWYER

Guess whose youngest nephew started smiling?! And is turning into a butterball like all of his siblings? You guessed it, Sawyer! He is so sweet, and we all love him so much.

Life Updates

When I catch up with people, my response is always 'same old, same old' and overall that remains true {for which I am SO thankful - happy marriage, good health, happy & healthy kids, stable jobs, etc.}. However, there have been a handful of small changes that in total need a blog post!

MTHFR

Some of my {small} number of readers have been reading for long enough to remember when we tested Trent and me for MTHFR thinking it would be linked to Trent's behavior challenges and my anxiety. We never tested the girls, but Drew has been dealing with some anxiety for awhile and Brent said 'Do you think we should test the girls for MTHFR?' and I responded 'DUH! Why didn't I think of that!?!' So we tested both girls...and they both have at least 1 MTHFR mutation.

Drew - 1 copy of the C677T mutation {the more severe mutation, same as Trent}

Paige - 1 copy each of the C677T and A1298C mutation {same as me}

The girls have their well-checks next week, so I'll talk to their doctor about it, but for now, we've started them both on 1 of the over-the-counter supplements Trent takes.

Brent is curious about his own potential for mutations, but knowing him, he won't have any haha.

Gateway

Trent and Drew changed schools at the start of the year {Trent 'graduated' from our beloved Montessori school so he had to move schools, but Drew asked to move when he did even though she could have stayed at Goodwater for 4 more years}. I applied for all 3 of them to get in {it's a charter school that always has a long waitlist} and none of them got in initially. Trent ended up getting accepted 6 days before school started and Drew just 3 days!

Having the big 2 enrolled jumped Paige up a lot...but she remained on the waitlist...until the week before Thanksgiving! I panicked when I got her acceptance email because she was super happy in her classroom and I didn't want to switch her so far into the school year. Brent {the level-headed man that he is} suggested seeing what Paige thought and how she felt about it. I just knew she would want to stay at Goodwater, but she surprised me and was super excited to move to Gateway with her Bubba and Sissy! {Don't ask me about the amount of time I spent panicking, spiraling, and crying over this ha.}

So she started right after the Thanksgiving break and has LOVED it! She has 2 friends in the classroom across the hall {she has recess and PE with them} and a girl from her Girl Scouts troop is in her class and we didn't know it! Gateway is a much more traditional school, but Paige has settled in really nicely - she loves having homework {which takes her about 3 minutes to complete} and having a cafeteria, gym, music room, etc. It's been nice for me having all 3 kids at the same school again and on the same calendar {although their start and end times are different which is annoying ha}.

Sawyer

The final member of #theSwopeseven got a name and I never shared it! We haven't been able to see the baby since his arrival because their pediatrician has suggested staying close to home, but we should get to see him very soon! My girls are chomping at the bits!!

George 'Sawyer' Patnode!!

{George is a family name on David's side}

Girl Scouts Troop Leader

I've been a relatively active parent in both girls' Girl Scouts troops but especially in Drew's as she likes for me to come to events. Well, there have been some leadership changes...and I took the plunge and became a troop leader this year, eek. I'm one of 3 mom leaders, and one was a leader last year, so we aren't a group of newbies thankfully! It's been a lot of fun so far, and I'm excited to go to GS camp this spring {both girls will be there at the same time and it'll be each of their first times}!

So like I said - nothing earth-shattering but all together some decent changes/new information in our family!!