February 11th-13th

 February 11th was Carter’s 4th birthday  we got all 3 boys a family pass and drink cup for the zoo. I love giving experiences and I also love having all their gifts done in advance  ❤️

February Wednesdays bring basketball games and cheerleader watching. Go small blue!

Raider Nation has been fun to watch and that’s in no small part due to them #winning. 

That week before Valentine’s Day was also parent viewing week for Delaney. I made it to her pointe, jazz, and contemporary classes and missed ballet and acro. 

I was very impressed with their workouts and their dances. It’s gonna be a fun show!

And they seem to have a really fun time with Ms. Gasoway. 

February 12th was Bubba and Jeanne’s 4th anniversary. ❤️❤️❤️❤️ I snapped D making Lu her drivers license. She commented about D’s stellar fashion sense. Adi and I were laughing at her one day after school when she said “I’m gonna go change into something more comfortable,” and we were like “you’re already wearing your pajamas???” 🤣

To be honest, I used some of the extra goodies I had bought in December for my valentines goodies. Because sometimes you go overboard. So one day we had “Cookie-tines” for our 14 day treat. 

Chelsea had texted me on the 12th and asked if I could watch Calvin on the 13th because she had Covid and couldn’t do it. Kellyn and I had to laugh because after I responded to Chelsea she never let Kellyn know. So then when I texted her that morning she was like, huh? And I didn’t look at my phone again and showed up and she was like, huh again. 🤣 Anyways, he’s cute and I only watched him for 2 hours. He was being a robot here and I made sure he could breath the whole time. 🤣

Matt came to watch D’s contemporary class Friday night. He was impressed too. 

And finally, uncle bubba sent Carter a big indoor basketball hoop and Henry observed them putting it together and trying it out. The boys love it! The mom, not as much. 

Valentines 2026

Matt brought me flowers and asked me on several valentines dates. I’m feeling like I want to spend all the time we can with Adi, and really all the girls, but I did think a movie would be fun, and none of them wanted to go. So we had a movie matinee date to see Solo Mio and it was very cute and fun and I’m glad Matt made me go. We forgot a picture till we were heading home

That evening we picked up one of Frankie’s friends and they went to Chick-fil-A, Target, and our house for dirty sofas, junk food, and chic flicks. . 

Chantell comes to town

Dan is out of town so extroverted Chantell came up for a visit. She arrived Thursday evening and left this morning (Saturday). I am guarding my sleep like a gal that’s got a goal not to nap (🙋‍♀️) so we only stayed up till 11 both nights. Pretty proud of myself. I tested a bunch of new recipes and we liked all of them. We went hiking out in St  Mary’s City and meant to play games but forgot.  

The weather has been lovely and very pre-Spring and we just love being with Chantell. This morning I made blueberry muffins and now Matt, Frankie, and I are on our way up to Towson for the basketball game Frankie won for winning her future teacher competition. Fun Saturday!

February 15th & 16th

 Well first of all. I’ve been a Duolingo’er for 1000 days. I definitely feel more comfortable with my Spanish, but i don’t give it enough that I’m anywhere close to fluent or even able to understand native speakers. 

We were busy on Valentine’s Day so did our annual scavenger hunt on the 15th. This was their last clue where they found their gifts inside the car. Delaney’s dancing it out. 🤣

I actually let AI write it up for me this year. Some of their clues were whack, but some of my clues are whack sometimes too. 

This one cracked me up! They were searching all over the pantry and the clue was on the door. 🤣 Delaney was like “maybe it’s on top - hoist me!” And then we laughed and laughed at “hoist me!” Frankie finally found the clue, but it was a fun one. 

P

Adi and Frankie are in the new’ish older young women class presidency, so Frankie has a zoom missionary meeting every week and Adi has zoom temple and family history meetings every very few weeks on Sundays. 

Monday was Presidents’ Day but the girls had to go to school to make up for a snow day. We had family night about conflict resolution and Adi made cookies and we didn’t have our extra activities so it was nice and quiet.  

February 17-19

Fat Tuesday! I try to celebrate all the little things that make everyday life less monotonous. And speaking of celebrating, that’s my word of the year. 

This year I want to celebrate people and days and achievements and any little thing I can. 

So obviously we celebrated Fat Tuesday. But not with pancake because I already had a dinner plan before I remembered. We celebrated with a quick and easy King Cake.

I halved the recipe and these guys ate it up. So I guess I should have done the whole thing  🤷‍♀️

Adi’s Miss Lucky this year!

I also went to inklings and we had family night and we talked about goals and set our Lent intentions. Wednesday was Curtis birthday so I supported Matt’s calling as a Priest advisor and made him cupcakes. It helps that I’ve known Curtis from before he was born and I love him.

It was Frankie’s second to last basketball game and dance and no church because of saturdays youth activity. 

On Thursday I went to the temple with Alecia and Kat. I love our bi-monthly temple trips. I love speaking temple language in the Celestial Room. As I’ve studied the temple recently I heard the temple is a liminal space. It’s not exactly in heaven and it’s not exactly on earth. I feel that so deeply. It’s one of my absolute favorite places.

D stayed home from ballet again and it was another quiet night  

February 20th-21st

 I’m gonna go v basic white girl here and just title everything with the dates to simplify. 

Friday was a 2-hour early release. Frankie had her last basketball game and Delaney still wasn’t feeling great, so stayed home from dance. 

The last game is always a little sad. Basketball is so fast paced and exciting so it’s fun to watch. In between watching the cheerleaders, obvi. 

Frankie’s stunt group is on the right and she’s the left base. They hit all their stunts this game and we are so proud of them for pushing through all their games that the didn’t hit all their stunts. 

It was Senior Night and some amazing momma put together this cool arch and had beautifully decorated cookies and snacks for everyone. Gotta remember this for Frankie’s senior year. They had blown up cardboard jerseys of the boys, but we could do cardboard cheer uniforms too. #adorbs. 

Curtis and Alecia came too and it’s so fun when friends come to support. We got there a few minutes late (as per the norm) and I didn’t see them and didn’t know for sure they were coming. So after the first quarter I finally looked at my phone and Alecia had texted “nice bun.” Haha, cue my searching the gym for my creepy friend. 🤣 I brought them over to the cheerleader viewing section and Curtis taught us about the rules of fouling. I understand most of basketball but fouls always got me like 🤔.

The girls had to turn in their uniforms, but when they finally came out of the bathroom we had a photo shoot. 

And with their 2 fun JV coaches. It’s been a learning and growing season and Frankie really loved it. 

Sarah Gravelle had a birthday board party, so Matt and I dipped pretzels and strawberries when we got home and I quickly made up our chocolate themed board. Frankie drove us and since I was pretty sure I wouldn’t take a single picture (I was right) I had Adi snap one while we were on our way. We family counseled about what theme of board to bring, and Frankie suggested the chocolate covered everything theme, so there you go. 

There were some fun ones! Mini chicken and waffles, Frankie’s favorite sushi, meatloaf and mashed potato’s on a toothpick, and then the gorgeous 10 foot long board Ryan handmade with all the chips and dips. All the theater people we sort of mostly know from over the years were there and I also sat and chatted with Chelsea for a long time. Aaaand, the girls had fun and weren’t begging to leave, so 🎉🎉🎉

On Saturday we had nothing on our plates so the girls rested since 2/3 were at that weird almost sort of sick place, but with rest you usually feel better. I’ve been making lots of new healthy recipes, so it was a little bit of this, little bit of that slow day. 

Monday storm

I love afternoon church! Sunday mornings are so slow and easy. I’ve been helping in the Nursery and it’s so fun. Jackie and I only had 3 cute little girls on Sunday and it was easy breezy. I’ve been class dojo’ing it for the parents and sending them cute pictures and blurbs about our day. I play primary music in the background and when a fun song comes on I try to get them to do the motions with me. They know some songs better than others. 🤣

By the time church ended at 2:00 it was snowing beautiful fat snowflakes. Matt had picked up Danny for church so we had 2 cars, so the girls went home and Matt and I stayed for the  baptism of a new sister I had never met. It snowed all evening and Adi made bread and when school was cancelled for Monday we all cheered. 

Just after 6 Monday morning, Matt jumped out of bed and looked out the window. Of course I jumped out of bed too but missed the action. A transformer exploded and caused several flashes of blue-green light. A neighbor caught this on their ring cam.  

And we didn’t have power. I stayed snuggled warmly in bed but Matt wanted to check things out. Thankfully the power can back on before the girls even woke up. One of our neighbors is a lineman for SMECO and I before that I never really thought about what important, difficult work those guys do. So thankful for them!

It was pretty snow that didn’t stick to any of our warm roads or sidewalks so all the little hopeful snow shovelers were disappointed. 

We watched Divergent and caught up on all the things. It was another lovely quiet at home day. 

Fixed

Matt fixed my blog issues. 🎉 

I hosted inklings today, so I spent my morning preparing for that. Bringing up table leaves, gathering chairs, and making King Cake since we studied Elder Amos talk and he’s from Louisiana. 

I wasn’t super prepared, but I wasn’t not prepared. I was medium prepared but the sisters participated and it was great. Relief Society sisters will never let a teacher fail. 

After, everyone hung out and ate cake and talked kids and college. And Alecia got the baby. Good luck for her 2026!

I made dinner yesterday and tried to make it so Frankie could eat before drivers ed, but then I realized two things. First, the recipe called for it to sit in the fridge overnight. Oops, but since it was pasta I figured it didn’t really matter. But second, it wouldn’t be done in time to eat before she left anyway. So Monday me threw frozen burritos in my already preheated oven, and lucky Tuesday me just had to pull the pasta out of the fridge and bake it. 

Adi and Frankie went to piano today too since Johnna didn’t have power for a lot of the day yesterday. 

It was a quiet night of homework and family time. Tuesday is D’s only night without dance so it’s usually our family night, but since we didn’t have school yesterday we had a family home afternoon and it was great. 

I picked Bryn up from dance since Chelsea is dealing with workers fixing her roof from the tree that fell on their house. 

And now this ace Lent’er is heading to bed, all night time stretched and ready. 

Well hello

I have zero desire to work on getting caught up on 3 months of blogging and I also can’t get my pictures to upload  

So anyway. Everything from just before Thanksgiving to February 1st was wild and busy. Then on the 1st we had our postponed Stake Conference where, after 5 years and 2 months, I was released. I’m grateful I had several months to prepare myself because it is a big adjustment. 

And now life is so much less busy! It’s pretty spectacular. Elizabeth was also released and we’ve been checking in with each other. She said she was gonna keep her February kind of clear and that was music to my ears.

And now it’s the end of February and I’m feeling much more grounded and adjusted. It’s an odd feeling going from 10 years as a relief society President to not being one. I loved my calling, and now I’m loving not having that calling. I’ve been helping in the nursery the last 3 weeks since I was released and the slow Sunday mornings with my crew are not too shabby.

I’ll try to get my pictures figured out and get back to catching up, but maybe not today. After a week of great all night sleep, last night I didn’t sleep well and I gave up napping for Lent, so it will be an early to bed kind of night. ❤️

November 23rd-November 24th

 

Special Stake Conference with Elder Rasband! Matt invited Danny to ride with us so we took the Jolly Green and I rode in the back with the girls. And while we were driving to the Stake Center, Lu and crew were leaving to come to our house for Thanksgiving, so we sent them our in the car pic.

The Stake Center was so crowded, but we sat in the overflow and it was wonderful. 

I will always do whatever I can to be where an apostle is.

We got home and got to pie baking. We each took a pie and prepped the house. Matt made a huge pot of homemade macaroni and cheese and when our weary travelers I arrived we ate a giant early dinner and played games. Cutie Carter admiring my magnets.

We had 18 people for pies and I took one bang up picture. It was fun and casual and delicious. I was telling Elizabeth about it and she asked if I would do it again, which I thought was a great question, and I don't actually know. I am trying to host more, it's important to me, but I'm not sure if this is the one. We'll see how 2026 Michelle feels.

The next day was Ms. Payne's big Thanksgiving Feast. I made a big pot of mashed potatoes and was able to volunteer in the class. I sniped Delaney while they were going over their lesson.

And Henry's first Mimi Snack Surprise! These boys have my whole heart! Emmett is not wearing glasses here because the boys and aunties were jumping on the trampoline and Adi bounced them too hard and Delaney and Emmett bonked and his glasses broke. Poor guy!

That night we put on a Hallmark Christmas movie and addressed Christmas cards and it was one of those special moments you want to remember forever. Years ago I read somewhere of friends that get together to address all their Christmas cards together while they watch Christmas movies and I love the idea but have never been able to make it happen. Until now. 💕