we made it...

First, we made it through January & February 2014 (THAT was a loooonnng & painful one) and second, we made it through Chris' first year with New Balance Commodities! Not only did he complete his first year, he is above their target for him, which is really not that surprising :) AND I must mention that his support staff made it too! (ie: the 5 girls that occupy the other 5% of his time ;)

And with that... we welcome March 1st, 2014... even though we're predicted to gain another 3-5 inches throughout the weekend and temps will continue to be a balmy 6-degrees ...WHAT?

ummm... at least we're one-week away from daylight savings time, right?!? RIGHT?!?

BUT we Iowans are all in this together... all 3-million of us. (I say 3-millions with sarcasm b/c Ohio has 11-million :) ANYHOW... this pic pretty much sums up my sanity level.... OH and on the 10-day forecast their is a 32-degree number for next Thursday... I'll believe it when I feel it. (fingers crossed, b/c I can't wait!)

On to happier subjects :)

March 1st, 2014 is also the day we are going to celebrate Ms. LeaAnn Claire's golden birthday this year, and she. is. PUMPED. So we do have a reason to smile and celebrate this weekend, despite the dreaded forecast. And before that happens, and I need to blog about that, I thought I should wrap up what I did  have on the books for February.

Last Wednesday, 2/19/14, the littles and myself went into Manchester to visit Lola's mom, Helen, who is at the Good Neighbor Nursing home now (previously in Dyersville but she had a stroke).  Lola (pseudo grandma) has been such a blessing to myself & the girls.. and she has always been the one to take care of her mom, but now it's extra stressful, as her other 3 sisters do not live near and are not helping to lighten the load... so we try and help Lola smile as much as possible. :) Which isn't too hard to do with those little girls...

It was hard for the girls to stay in the room, it was little and LeaAnn has never been one to just sit ;) So we visited the fish several times...

Lola found them ice-cream :)

But overall the girls did well, and Helen was very happy to see them.

Lydia really impressed me. Helen really wanted Lydia to sit on her lap, and she did it! I was shocked.

Notice LeaAnn's cooperation level?

She wanted to be pushed...

And of course Lola obliged :) there isn't too much she says no too.

Very happy we went, Lola was so appreciative... and I told her we will definitely go back again. Hopefully with all 4 of them :) (Helen had 4 girls too)

Sunday, 2/23/14
Dad had Sean Baragary's annual 500-tournament on Saturday night... and though he really wanted to come home at a normal hour, he just was having too much fun... and couldn't do it ;) But he did come home with some winnings this year! Woo-hoo!

I had toyed with the idea of going to Waterloo after Sunday School but wasn't for sure... but after he walked in the door that morning, I quickly grabbed some of his money and decided it was a shopping day for all of us girls!

After Sunday School we went to Target, subway and the mall... the girls did great. I used take Lauren & Lindsay everywhere when they were their ages... poor things get neglected  ;) The big girls were a super help and we'll definitely have to do it again. Thanks Dad for paying for new swimsuits, our lunch and carousel rides!!! :D

Drum roll please... THE. END. of February... hooorrayyy!