Winter

This winter was mostly a blur of short days and school at home.

But there were certainly some beautiful moments that separated themselves from the rest.

Our trip to the snow was a big one. Maiko and Layla learned to snowboard, and Eislee, Ollie, and I learned to ski (Matt learned to ski and snowboard when he was a child). We all had a wonderful time and look forward to adding outdoor sports to our annual winter activities. 

    We have been reading a lot. Ollie has definitely read the most though. she completed the entire "Harry Potter" series this winter and then began it again... among other books we have required her to read. That girl will stay up until 2am reading if we don't make her put the book down and go to sleep. 

    We always play board games in the winter but this year we introduced more card games.

We taught all of the kids to play rummy and often enjoyed playing a few hands while eating dinner. We also taught them to play spoons and speed. We had a speed tournament over Christmas, which was an absolute blast... and we played an epic game of spoons on New Year's Eve (adding many new scratches to our dinning table.... insert crying/laughing emoji here).

I have slowly made new strides with my art practice. Creating new pieces and finding new paths for old pieces... stickers!! I look forward to a time when I can dedicate more of myself to my art practice, but I am enjoying this moment in time when we are all together at home so much. The kids are growing up so fast now, and I know that we don't have much more time left all together like this. 

Maiko and Layla have used some of their extra time wisely and have learned some new songs on the guitar and ukulele. I always envisioned my kids playing music together and it makes my heart so happy to watch that dream become reality. 

Of course this winter wasn't all good... there were certainly difficult moments. But in this space... these documented memories... I am going to focus on the good.

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.