February

• The dog and cat are best friends and it is absolutely adorable.
• I have made small amounts of creative progress. Playing with a few new mediums and trying new things with old pieces, but art has mostly taken a backseat this month as i focus on things that have a bigger hold on my attention. Spring cleaning. I am working through the entire house in an attempt purge, deep clean, and organize. I always seem to get the need to do this around this time of year, and I can't focus on much else until it's done. So... that is my current top priority.
• With all of that cleaning I have decided to take photographs of the kids rooms and special spaces so that they can look back and remember what their rooms looked like (when they're clean).
• Maiko decided this month that he wanted to learn to play an instrument. He dedicated himself to learning the ukulele and he has already learned around five songs, bought himself an electric guitar, learned several songs on that, and is now teaching Layla. I am SO EXCITED. I have always kept instruments hanging around HOPING that someday one of them would want to learn. 
• We took a trip to California at the beginning of the month. A gift from the grandparents. We visited Disneyland and Universal Studios. It was a lot of fun. I forced my oldest to come along, he felt he was too old for such a trip. He had fun. The kids had several wonderful moments of connection as well. We all loved the Stars Wars section of Disney. It was really well done. Eislee, Ollie, and I really enjoyed the Harry Potter area in Universal. We are currently reading the fifth book in the collection and absolutely love them all. We are so happy to be home again. It feels as though spring may have come early to Oregon, only time will tell.