Fifty-one!

Today is not our 51st day of school. It's our 107th day. Yesterday was Paul's 51st birthday. Nadia was quick to remind him that now it's only four more years until we can attend the "Best Years Fellowship" events at our church. He opened his gifts before breakfast. I had bought him a game (Ticket to Ride), a book on the Revolutionary War, one jar of peanuts, and two bags of peanut M&Ms. On January 1st we played the game I got him for Christmas for the first time (Catan). I gave him a haircut before we went to church. After church, we went through the drive-thru at KFC. We go there usually at most once a year. We usually have donuts for breakfast on the morning of each family member's birthday, but we bought the donuts yesterday in conjunction with picking up the KFC so we had the birthday donuts this morning instead of on his actual birthday. We didn't have any birthday cake, but I had made him white chocolate macadamia nut cookies a few days ago as his birthday treat. We got a few inches of snow yesterday afternoon. I shoveled the driveway before dinner yesterday, and the kids all played outside in the snow. It was the first time in almost two weeks that the kids played with any of the kids in the neighborhood, partially because our next door neighbors have had COVID recently. It was nice to see kids playing outside again. When we got 19 inches of snow last month it was colder out so the snow wasn't good packing snow. This time it was around 35 degrees out so the snow packed together nicely. Today Nadia made a snowman, and Oliver made a snow chair. 

Milo made progress two weeks ago and then regressed last week, but he's making positive progress again. He only had one accident on Friday, one on Saturday, none on Sunday, and so far today he hasn't had any. His previous record had been 46 hours without an accident, but he's now beaten that record as it's been more than 48 hours since his last accident. We (mostly Nadia) take him out VERY regularly. It will be lovely when he gets to the point where he goes to the door to let us know when to take him out in contrast to us watching the clock and taking him out 1-2 times per hour, but not having messes to clean up is a huge relief. I wasn't sure our carpet would ever be the same! Homeschooling went much  better today than it did the week before Christmas. I purposefully didn't include Spanish or art in the lesson plans for today to shorten our school day a little bit. I also bought him some bones that really help keep him occupied better than any of his other toys. They cost a little more than $4 each which makes me wish they lasted longer than they do, but they are definitely a big help. I'm going to see if there is a way I can add more smell/taste back to the bones to get more mileage out of them.

We are praying for relatives who have medical concerns. Millie (Paul's sister-in-law) had knee replacement surgery today. It went well, and we're praying for her recovery process. Paul's mom was taken by ambulance to the hospital yesterday. Because of the snow, they couldn't take her to the hospital where she usually goes. We're praying for the doctors to have wisdom in caring for her. Margie is starting chemo tomorrow. We're praying that it will eradicate all the cancer in her body and that she'll have as few side effects as possible.