Valentine’s Day

Sunday before Valentine’s Day accidental color matching.  Love these kids!

We had a great Valentine’s Day.  It started with one last look in the mailboxes.  We all found love notes and the kids had small gifts.  Emma was thrilled to get one of her favorite movies on DVD (we had it on VHS).  The Princess Bride is a perfect Valentine’s Day movie!

Isaac and Grace both got new puzzles.

I wanted the kids to know how much their parents love each other so I talked about our wedding day during breakfast.  I was surprised that Emma didn’t know the story of Lee’s pinky wedding ring.  I guess I need to talk about that good day more often!  We also read our last love scripture.

Isaac, Grace and I went to Hope Village to deliver Valentine’s that our playgroup had made.  So fun!  Isaac and Grace remembered doing it last year and they were so excited to pass out the hearts.  We waited in front of the dining area and caught the residents as they went to lunch.  Most of them were pleased as punch to see the little kids and kept commenting on how cute they were. 

These boys can be charmers one minute, and then wrestling around on the floor the next.

The girls were so sweet!

When the flow of residents started to slow down a bit the kids played hide and seek.  Looks to me like Isaac is the only one hiding!  :)

I’m so glad Isaac and Grace have such good friends to be with.

Unfortunately Lee had to work late on Valentine’s Day. We also got our new oven that day and I wasn’t sure what the state of my kitchen would be, so we planned our “fancy” family Valentine’s Day dinner for the next day.   Thankfully the oven was in and working that evening so I was able to make Lee’s traditional giant, heart-shaped cookie.  Phew.  It wouldn’t have been Valentine’s Day without it!  

I had planned a few fun games to play, but the Hershey Kiss matching game we played first took forever.  We had fun but called it a night after that one!

Well, first we had to eat heart-shaped donuts for dessert!

Making Valentine’s

There were lots of people that we wanted to give Valentine’s to this year.  The kids made some toilet paper roll art that we turned into Valentine’s for our Meals on Wheels people.  They were fun to make and even more fun to pass out.

We also wanted to make Valentine’s for our playgroup and preschool friends.  Grace saw Lee making some heart crayons for a YW event he spoke at and really wanted to make some.  When I told Grace that Emma made them for her Valentine’s when she was younger, she knew that was what she wanted to make for her friends.  She helped me make the crayons and then she diligently wrote her name on each Valentine.

Another day we put the crayons on the paper and they were all done!  She was thrilled with them and even happier to have a few crayons left over to color with herself.

I showed Isaac a Star Wars Valentine on Pinterest and he went nuts over it.  He also wrote his name on all the Valentine’s and helped put the glow stick light sabers in.

He was very happy with how they turned out.  Star Wars AND Lego!

Back to School!

Lee is officially a nursing student at Linfield College.  School started on February 11th, he reluctantly let me take a picture so I could document the big day! 

A few weeks before school started our funny home teacher gave Lee a very appropriate back to school gift.  Hopefully he won’t actually be acting or looking like this!

La La was nice enough to offer to hang out with the kids one evening before school started so Lee and I could go out together for one last hurrah.  We went to dinner at La Provence which we love for breakfast and lunch, but we had never been there for dinner.  We had some things we have never tried before, some of it was good and some of it was interesting!  The people sitting on either side of us were being very nice and giving us advice about what we should try.  We probably should have stuck with what we thought we would like.  But the desserts…oh they were delicious!

Then we went to see a movie.  Unfortunately my dad decided to give us all a big scare that night and have a heart attack.  We left the movie early so we could go be with him and so Lee could give him a blessing.  How grateful we are that my dad is ok and how grateful I am for a husband who knows what is more important than The Hobbit and is always ready to use his priesthood.  We love you dad! 

So after getting in some last minute time together, a nice Sunday dinner with family, a blessing from my dad, oh and speaking at Stake Conference, Lee was ready for school on Monday!  So far things have gone well and he has been able to juggle full-time school with working part-time, his family and his calling.  Some days the kids don’t see him at all, but that isn’t any different for us than what it has been for the last few years, it’s just a bigger homework load for Lee.  He’s working hard and we are all proud of him.  He was pretty excited the day he got to wear his scrubs to school.

Even more excited when he got his stethoscope and other nurse trappings.  All the kids had to try it out.

Before we know it hopefully it will go that fast, he will be a murse nurse!

Love Is In the Air!

To get us ready for Valentine’s Day we read a different scripture about love every day.  Each scripture had a little challenge to go along with it so we could remember the love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ, and how we can show that love to others.  idea here  It was a great way to start our day, the Hershey Kisses we ate while we reading the scriptures didn’t hurt either…

Isaac, Grace AND Emma kept asking when we were going to decorate our mailboxes.  The day finally came and we went to town with red, pink and purple decorations.  Well, not all of us, I cheated and kept my mailbox from last year!

They turned out cute and were all ready to be filled during the week before Valentine’s Day.

Isaac and Grace would rush down each morning to see if their flags were up.  Most days there were just little love notes in the mailboxes.  I love the opportunity these mailboxes give to send a little love to each other.

One day the kids got secret Valentine notes.  They had fun revealing the secret message!

Another day they got fun Valentine jokes, and then another they got socks.

Love was in the air at our house!

Groundhog Day

We had to have a little bit of fun for Groundhog Day.  We had been reading several Groundhog Day library books the week before so the kids were thrilled to see these cute little guys for breakfast.

We watched Punxsutawney Phil make his prediction.  Actually, this picture is of them watching last years prediction, we didn’t realize it until we watched for awhile…

Thanks to Pinterest I found a cute little groundhog themed game that was perfect for Isaac and Grace.  We had fun playing it several times.

Groundhog Day is quite silly, but it is always fun to do a few things out of the ordinary.  We just hope the prognosticator of all prognosticators was correct and that we WILL have an early spring!