Polar Vortex

First of all, WHAT HAPPENED TO JANUARY??  Looking at the calendar, I see that the first week of January was still Christmas Break, then the second week we had sickness overtake the house.  The third week was fairly normal except for the kids having a half day of school on that Friday, and then the fourth week they had Monday off for Winter Break and that Friday was a snow day!  And now this whole week school was cancelled!  Six snow days in a row!!!  And, boom, now it's February just like that.  I'm surprised I even know what day it is right now, the whole week has been a blur of cancellations.  Overall it's been a good break, the kids have mostly played nice.  I feel bad that Mike hasn't gotten much sleep between all the snow plowing and his regular job, but I think he'll be able to sleep all night tonight, so that will be great!  The boys have gotten some outside playtime in, but a couple days it was so cold and the windchill was so low that they couldn't go out.  (Frostbite within 10 minutes?  No thanks!) 

We finally watched The Greatest Showman this week (twice, in fact), and the boys loved it (so did I).  I forget what day it was (maybe Wednesday?), but they really worked hard to put on their own show for Mike and I.  They worked on it a good portion of the day, and they thought of every detail: the made money and tickets, had concessions to buy (gum to chew during the show, and putty to play with), punched our tickets, had comfortable front row seats for us, and they did a nice job coordinating the lights with their acts.  They sang a few songs (opened with The Doxology!), and did a few dances.  I loved seeing their creativity, and how much work they put into it.  For the most part they cooperated, so it's nice to see that's actually possible.

We've been debating on what vaccinations to get for our upcoming trip to Kenya.  We've at least decided to make sure we're all current on Hepatitis A & B.  So, we went as a family to the doctor's office today to get our shots.  The boys did great!  Thankfully, they all only needed one, Mike and I each needed two.  I also needed some routine blood work done earlier this morning, figured I'd get all my pokes done in one day.  (Except Mike and I need to get a follow-up shot in a month.)  I'm really proud of how the boys handled it.  We told them last night that we'd be doing this, and nobody freaked out.  Today they were a little nervous, but it wasn't bad.  Neither Caleb nor Logan made a peep during the shot, Levi and Jackson each cried a tiny bit, but no crazy screaming or anything and they both recovered quickly.  We took them to Rainbow Grill for lunch afterwards as a treat.