January is long and February remains dreary but we get to celebrate 2 birthdays and I'm a lover of Valentines day. So all in all, it was a good month. But time is just flying by now, I can't believe we are entering the final count down to school being over! I've been really into getting my house organized and living as minimalist as a family of 7 can live. We are not minimalists but what I've done thus far has been such an improvement and it is much easier to keep the house clean. I'm really trying to break the habit of consumerism. I like the lifestyle of using less resources and buying high quality and materials that are sustainable. Small things like taking our own bags to the grocery store but we also take our own cloth bags for produce. Anyway, if I'm not careful, I'll be talking about astrological stuff and Mercury in Retrograde before you know it. Gotta be careful with me around rabbit holes.
But while we're on the woo woo topic, on the 5th of the month, which was Lunar New Year but also a New Moon. So I hung out with my people in a teepee for a New Moon ceremony. One of my happy places is in a teepee, with drums, meditation and like minded spiritual people
The smart girl that I am, I planned a workshop for Ryan to teach in Moab. They pay him to come down and pay for his hotel and then I get to hang out in Moab all day. Who's the smarty? I'm the smarty. We ended up bringing Abbey, Charlie and Aiden with us and left Cloe and Brody home alone on a school night. eeeek. Because it was a school night and I knew they had to wake up early, I knew we would be safe of house parties. But Moab is so beautiful. The girls and I went to brunch because we're fancy. Or you could just call it a late breakfast. Then we went for a nice hike and eventually made our way to the workshop. The HS students that attended were surprisingly good. We were very impressed.
February commenced the basketball season. Aiden and Charlie were so fun to watch. They're athletic but also aggressive. Charlie made it clear to me that should would not go to any of her games and that I was wasting my money. Of course she ended up loving it. She doesn't love the idea of new things. They make her little nervous.
Valentines day is one of my favorite holidays. I love all the holidays but I think in a dreary and cold winter, adding red, pink and white to my house makes it all better. My kids love our tradition of a romantic dinner and it's always fun to eat a candle lit dinner.
Ryan also has a tradition of dressing nice and bringing the girls flowers and chocolate to them while they're at school. It helps a lot that it embarrasses some of them because parents aren't parenting correctly if they aren't embarrassing their kids.
There is an instagrammer that is a therapist and a big advocate for self acceptance and love. She is for sure doing her part squashing the beliefs that diet culture create. She hosted a self love dance party so I bought 2 tickets. Once for me and one for a gal that I know can really cut a rug. Cloe is cool enough to go dancing with her old ma. I think she had fun. I did and that's all that matters.
Cloe went ahead and turned 17 this year. She is our straight A student and she is starting to see the benefits of that. She is getting letters from colleges before even applying. She loves to cook and is considering taking culinary classes her senior year off campus and then who knows from there. When you have good grades and a good ACT score you give yourself plenty of options.
Abbey turned 14 on the 20th. She's our little social butterfly and is CONSTANTLY asking me if she can go places with her friends. It gets exhausting. For her birthday, she requested that I check her and her friends out for lunch and they go to Costa Vida. But she is witty and her spam instagram account always makes me laugh. She begged for her own room and now that she has it, she is too scared to sleep in there and is still sleeping with Charlotte and Aiden. When they say no, she floats around until she can sneak her way into bed with someone.
Luckily for us, my cousins birthday is this month. She lives in AZ but decided to come to UT for her birthday to celebrate with family. She rented the neatest cabin and invited us to join. The highlight was the bunkbed room. It was a wall of bunkbeds, and very comfortably slept 8. We had so much fun. My mom pulled the kids around the property on sleds.
