Last day of February

Lent begins tomorrow.  As usual, I'm not ready, but since this is usual, I know that there is time to do the things I might have hoped to do before hand during Lent.  In fact, Ash Wednesday is a really great day to to things like make a Lenten Calendar (a la Jessica at Shower of Roses) or make a crown of thorns on a poster on the wall and then let the kids pick a color of marker to draw flowers on the thorns, knowing which color of flower stands for the sacrifices made by them.
It helps to do these things on Ash Wednesday because, well, we'll be fasting and abstaining, so it's good to distract from, well, food.

I can't figure out how to rotate the photo, but this year I bought a king cake, which actually came with a little plastic baby to hide in the cake.  The baby stands for Jesus, whom the Three Kings found.  The colors stand for justice (purple), power (gold), and faith (green).  It's traditionally eaten on Mardi Gras, the end of the season that began on the Epiphany, the feast of the three kings.

I bought it, but then we all got the stomach flu, so only some of us ate it.

And only some of us are celebrating the final day of being able to have sweets and treats before Lent begins tomorrow.  Actually, having the stomach flu and shrinking your stomach isn't a bad way to head into Ash Wednesday...you know, always looking on the bright side.

Who is almost 8 months old?!  And why is he holding a giant glue stick at a basketball game?  Mama knows how to keep him happy, that's why.  #homeschooledbaby

You know my twin niece and nephew were in the NicU, and are now happily home!  Unfortunately, they are still preemies and as I mentioned, we just got the stomach flu.  What is a poor doting Aunt to do?  Steal over to my sister's house and knock on the front window for a peek, of course!  No germs!

The glare form the window didn't make for the best pictures, but I got to see them!!

 

I cannot wait for the day when I can actually hold them!!

In my own home, I am hoping to get a lot of Spring Cleaning done this Lent.  I like the ideas of 40 bags/40 days, but I'm pretty sure I can't get 40 bags this year.  I can weed out our clothes again now that we're through the bulk of the winter.  I know there are things like Christmas outfits that can be packed away.  Organizing closets is top on my list of to-dos.  Believe it or not, I cleaned out our garage on a nice day this past week.  But our car is in super need of a deep clean after the winter grime.  (I hear tell that we're due for another snow storm, so I might just hold off for a few more weeks on that one).  I'm hoping to get a big Spring Cleaning list up so I can keep track of what I've actually accomplished, but don't hold me to it.  I'm already out of time and simply blogging to procrastinate returning to the fray!  We're waiting on a new delivery of Sprite--let's hope we return to good health soon!