St. Patrick's Day in Chicago

Our big outing in March was to see the river dyed green in Chicago for St. Patrick's day.  

This is how the day went..

We were actually early for the 8:37 a.m. train.  There were a ton of people!  The train was packed.  We got one seat and a spot for our stroller.  Thankfully, a guy gave up his seat so we had 6 people on two seats!  I held Sofie, Nels held Noah or Isak and Kira sat on a small spot next to me.  It was cozy.  The train was loud, but thankfully the hour plus twenty minute ride went quickly.  People watching helped pass the time.  Here's our family on the train:

Noah was SUPER good and cute.  A happy surprise.  😀

He loved the train.  He kept  saying "Choo, choo" and looking out the window.

And he was so silly with daddy.  😜

Once we arrived, we walked over to Michigan Avenue.  We saw the green river!  We took lots of pictures.  It was cold and windy...38 degrees or so.  But the wind made it SO cold.

Noah was freezing and Kira was so cold she was mad...as you can see from the picture below.

The bridges were crowded with people taking pictures.  We tried to get a few shots.

Someone offered to take our picture...haha.  kind of a funny one...

Then we found a spot by accident that was secluded and no one was around.  So we took some time to take some pictures.  I whipped out my selfie stick and started clicking.  haha.

I think this one is funny.

Then someone found our spot...but they were nice and took our picture for us.

And that's the green river!

After pictures, we walked around to find a place to eat.  It was soooo crowded everywhere.  We ended up at McDonald's.  Kira thought it was the Best part of the day.  The kids ate 20 nuggets and we got a green shake to share.

Then we walked back to the train station.  This is how the river normally looks...

There's Nels with the stroller and kids.

We made it just in time for the 1:40 p.m. train.  They literally closed the doors as we got the stroller onto the train!  Then we walked up the moving train to find seats.  Thankfully Nels found a great spot with plenty of room and we enjoyed the train home.  Sofie ate snacks the whole time.  Noah sat on Nels's lap.  I played hangman with Kira and Isak.  We got home safe and sound and recovered with a nap. 😀

February's Little Moments

Here are the little moments in February.

All four snuggling together for a show.

It's all about the unicorns.

Isak and Kira love their art days at Kindergarten.  Here's their snowplow pictures.

Some great style here.  Noah shirtless and his chunky necklace and sunglasses cracks me up.  They push these "trucks" around and chase after each other.  Noah calls them "trucks." haha.

Nels took Isak and Kira to the school's movie night.  They watched Incredible's 2.  They loved it and then I watched it again with them at home.  :)

We played Trouble a lot.  Isak loves this game as much as me.  

We had some freezing rain.  😬

It was pretty though.

Check out those icicles on the table.

We like to do ice cream cones at our house.  Sofie is sad because part of hers is falling off.

I tried to get some too.  haha.

Tried a new healthy meal.  Sheet pan sweet potato hash with eggs.  It was pretty good.  The seasonings were a little spicy.  I think I would have liked it more if the flavors were savory instead.

Just eating peanut butter.

Sofie loves to do whatever her sister is doing.  When Kira gets ready for school so does Sofie - backpack and all.

Learning to color from Kira.

Here's Isak working on a 100 piece Spiderman puzzle.

Haha.  Oh Sofie.  She thought it would be great to paint her face with frosting.  We were all laughing which of course encouraged here to continue.

Noah can put this 48 piece puzzle together by himself.  I asked if I could take a picture of him and he laid down on it.  😀

Snowflakes for the winter.  I taught Isak and Kira how to cut out snowflakes.  We watched some YouTube videos about it too.

We also read this book "Snowflake Bentley."  Great non-fiction story.  Bentley was obsessed with snow and figured out how to photograph individual snowflakes with a microscope camera.  He loved the unique crystal formations of each flake.  He took hundreds of photos.  We found his work on his website and Youtube too.  It was fun to learn about him and snowflakes.

Kira made this card for my mom when she had eye surgery.  She is becoming a great writer.

My sister Mandi gave us a fun package this month.  They are activity folders and they are awesome.  The kids love them and we use them every Sunday.

Thank you Mandi!!

I made homemade granola.  I took a little jar to the person I visit at church.

We went to the library.  They always have cute things for the kids to do.  This time Kira and Sofie loved playing with the pretend food.

A friend was super brave and invited our crew over to make sugar cookies.  The kids had fun rolling out the dough, cutting out the shapes, frosting the cookies and of course eating the cookies!

I entered Sofie and Noah into the free tuition preschool lottery.  Sofie won!  She gets to go to preschool in August!  Noah is number 23 on the waiting list.  So we went to the school to fill out paperwork.  The babies liked the dog and pointed to its eyes.

Great fashion, right?!😂

Trying to do some FHE lessons.  It was on the wise man and the foolish man.  I didn't have any sand, so we improvised and used snow.  😀.

The kids liked pouring water on it.

My mom found this picture on her computer and sent it to me.  This photo is from our engagement photo shoot.  We were so young!  😍

Other things in February:

• Nels gave a talk in church.  Kira did too.  Isak and I spoke in January.  So we shouldn't have to speak for a while now.  :)
• Kira, Isak and I all had dentist appts.  We all did great.  No cavities!
• Our radon fan broke.  Nels figured out how to replace it with a new one.  He did great.
• For coding this month...I made a bounceBubble function work in Codepen.  And I coded a Blackjack game by following a tutorial from Pluralsight.
• I continued to read War and Peace.
• I did the taxes.  Nels reviewed them and we filed them.
• I found sheet music for the piano song "Dawn" from the sound track of the movie "Pride and Prejudice." I love that song.  It's been fun to learn.  I looked up tutorials on how to play it on youtube and that helped a lot!
• Sofie climbs out of her crib regularly.  In the morning she climbs out and looks for us downstairs or in our bedroom.  She'll snuggle with us in bed for a few minutes.  She's a cute snuggler.
• Nels went to the temple this month.
• Nels got an awesome bonus and a raise!  Great work Nels!!!
• That's about all.  We enjoyed the car show, our dates with the big kids and Valentine's Day.