Pennies, Football, Love, and Hippos. Oh My!

Hoping to get caught up on all our adventures soon! 

February 12: National Lost Penny Day

Who doesn't have a million pennies rolling around the bottom of their purse or car? I feel like you can find them just about everywhere. At our house a lot of those pennies end up in one of the kids' piggy banks because there's just not a lot else to do with those things. Today's holiday is about gathering up the abandoned and lost coins. I decided to turn it into a scavenger hunt for Middle. I could have easily hidden a bunch of actual pennies around the house, but with as bad as my memory is, we'd have been searching for them for months. I decided instead to make larger paper versions and put them in various spots around the house.

I made 6 and hid them throughout our downstairs rooms while Middle napped.

When Middle woke up, I showed him a real penny and explained that it was a kind of money. His immediate response was "That's money" much to Papa's delight. 😂

I told him there were pennies hiding in the house and he had to find them. I took him to the bathroom, by far the smallest room in the downstairs, so that finding the first penny would be easy and he could understand what he was looking for. After that he was off to the races. 

After he found all 6, he decided to go back and find them a few more times. He even had to take Papa around to show him all the pennies as well. He was having so much fun finding them, that I decided to leave them up for a bit.

February 13: Super Bowl Sunday!

This Super Bowl was a big one for our house and the area. Our Cincinnati Bengals were hoping to win their first ever Super Bowl during their 3rd appearance. Papa was hyped up and busy in the kitchen prepping snacks for the smoker.

The boys were a little less enthused, going about their normal routine.

After breakfast and morning naps, both boys put their Who-Dey gear on. We all made sure to wear the exact same things we were wearing two weeks prior when the Bengals won the playoff. I didn't snap any new pictures but here's a few from that playoff weekend.

We joined a neighbor at their house to watch the game. Middle wasn't a fan of their rather large (but cute and playful!) dogs and it was getting late, so we walked back home just before the halftime show started to get the boys ready for bed. While they were tucked in, Momma and Papa watched the end of the game on the couch. It wasn't the ending we wanted, but man, what a season!

February 14: Valentine's Day

Since Middle had already made his Valentines last month, he was able to give out the last two cards today! (Two were delivered a couple weeks ago to family we would not see again before Valentine's) Traditionally, the boys get a gift from Papa on Valentine's Day as well. Momma had snagged a great deal on some Thomas train tracks a little while back, so we held onto them for the day. After Middle laid down for the afternoon nap, Momma quietly pulled out the tracks and set them up. When he woke up, he was thrilled to see the new setup and spent most of the afternoon playing.

Momma was content to just let him enjoy and spend the day loving on her two littlest Valentine's 💘

February 15: World Hippo Day

Having been around for nearly 8 million years, these water and mud loving mammals are cute enough to enjoy their own special day. Our local zoo is the home of world famous Fiona--The smallest hippopotamus to survive. Born premature at just 29 pounds, less than 1/2 the weight of a normal hippo baby, she's become quite the celebrity. I had hoped that the weather would cooperate for us and make a trip to the zoo to see Ms. Fiona herself. I watched the predicted numbers fluctuate for 2 weeks and sadly on the day, it was just a bit too cold to go strolling around the zoo for Little and Middle. Instead, I found some live webcams to hopefully catch a glimpse of other hippos. Both the Memphis and San Diego zoos have hippo cams and there's even a couple live cams for hippos in the wild in Africa! We didn't see anything in San Diego, but we caught a glimpse of a hippo surfacing in the water at the Memphis zoo. Due to the time difference, it was night on the wild cams, but we did find a sleeping hippo on one. Disappointed in our live viewing, I found a youtube video of hippos in San Diego. Middle watched the "water pigs" for a while before started our craft for the day.

As seen on Pinterest, we made a paper plate hippo!

Momma cut the round edges off two sides of each plate to make two oval shapes. I folded one plate in half and gave each to Middle to paint. 

After he was done painting the outside of the folded plate, we had to paint the inside all pink.

Momma dried all the sides and cut out a few detail pieces. Middle picked out a set of googly eyes from our craft drawer and then we assembled using our glitter glue from our Winnie the Pooh day! 

Middle liked making the mouth chomp and was eager to show off his work to Papa when he came in from work.