A Day For Family Love

 It's getting harder to get everyone together at one time, so our Valentine's Day of Family Love was pushed back a week this year. But we got 'er done.

We topped off dinner with a game and dessert.

Forbidden Island is a group strategy game and we beat the flood.

I made Grandma White's Polka-Dot Nut Drops, per Zeke's request. Her claim to fame is that she was the first to come up with M&M cookies. In the 50s she sent the recipe to American Woman magazine, where she won some sort of contest. The next month M&M had a full page ad featuring the recipe. Of course we substituted the nut part, but they were yummy!

PS Happy Birthday

[February 21]

Ice Ice Baby

 The inclement weather hit, and, not surprisingly, Texas froze like a deer in headlights. Both literally and figuratively. The city of Fort Worth was shut down for two days. 

No, that boy is not wearing shoes.

Daisy is in a winter coat, hat, gloves, and snow boots. Eli is in t-shirt and shorts, with no shoes.

It's a shame that Chuey hates her coats, because they are so cute.

We tried 'sledding' down the driveway.

The Daiser took a running start like she was sliding into home base, but she just stuck there.

We did a little baking and lots of tv watching and screen surfing.

Chuey was living her best life because I was mostly on the couch or the bed and she got to sleep on my lap the entire time.

We were iced in for two days. On Monday Abe went back to work but school was out until Thursday. The roads were OK in the afternoon so James came over.

Daisy's friend Marley and Anna also came as soon as James left. They did the no speak/no hear/no see task when making brownies.

The girls stayed the night. As soon as they left James came back. My sweet little introvert earnestly asked how Daisy's social battery was not depleted. Eli was baffled when I said it was just getting charged to full capacity. 

[January 24-28]

Shhh, It's Eli's Birthday

This guy does not like anyone to know it's his birthday. It's like, was he switched at birth?

MLK Day was Monday before his big day. Instead of having a party, we went out to eat all day. Breakfast a McDonald's,

followed up with Chick-fil-A for lunch.

For dinner we went to La Playa Maya with Grannie.

The actual day was like a secret mission for the birthday boy. He went the whole day without anyone other than family knowing it was his special day. And that's exactly how he wanted it. 

He had a fun surprise with a knock on the door bringing warm cookies from Tiff's Treats sent by Aunt Gaea.

Birthday cake of fresh cookies a la mode with hot fudge sauce.

This boy is uniquely Eli and he is loved so much.

[January 21]

DanFam5 Forevah! •••••

 I once mentioned that if I were to ever get another tattoo, even though I didn't think I was going to, it would be 5 little dots on my wrist to represent DanFam5. So when Zeke asked if I wanted to get it together with him, I said heck yeah. Something special with my boy and something special to represent our little family--sign me up!

He asked for it for Christmas, so we did it. Here he is, pre-tattooed.

And here he is, getting it.

And here he is, post tattooed.

Then it was my turn.

Our little DanFam5, forevah on our wrists. Plus, if we ever go missing, you can show this photo for identifying marks.

[January 4]