Day of Love . . . . . . .

We love Valentines Day at our house! Especially with kids. Before I had kids, I always looked at it as an over-commercialized holiday where everybody felt guilty or sad. With my whole little family now, I don't think that anymore! It is SOOO much fun to come up with fun crafts, parties, valentines, and games just to show everybody how much we love them! Now - I don't want to ruin the loving spirit I have going on here, but at the risk of being prideful, I really think I have THE most beautiful Valentines ever!!

Now the highlight of Ava's entire Valentine's season (yep - I just called it a season - that's how we roll at our house):  Her Castle Valentines Box!  Now - this was definitely a whole family affair, but daddy really did the research and dirty work to get it to be this magnificent.  Watching her taking it into school literally had me holding back the tears.  Even with her shy little personality at school, I could just see the glow coming off of her she was so proud!  She kept telling her friends that "me and daddy made it."  I know - pulls at my heart strings too.

Ava on her way to her Valentines party with her "squeeze" valentines, their Valentines movie night, heart shaped pancakes and pink milk for breakfast, and the spread at our friends Valentines party we had at our house.  I can't emphasize enough how much my daughter loves holidays.  Luckily we can do anything fun and throw "Valentines" in front of it and it's a huge celebration!  And don't even get me started on my "pink" milk.  Yes - I know it's purple, and Ava DEFINITELY knew it was purple, not pink.

We got to show lots of love this week because we had Grandma Annie and Papa visit!  What a fun surprise.  We are so lucky to have such amazing family on both sides of mine and Randy's family.  We are truly blessed.  The kids were watching the Testaments with Papa.  The picture with Kai is one that Ava took.  I had to throw it in there just so we would remember that at this point in time, my kid's very favorite movie is the "Jesus movie."  How great is that?  They ask for it all of the time.

What would Valentines Day be without sugar cookies?  Not only did they get to cut out and frost cookies, they also got to do it with Grandma!

I just wanted to add to this that while Daddy was at work, we decorated his door with lots of paper hearts.  The middle one said, "We love Daddy Because . . . "  The answers came from the kids and this is what they said:
He Loves to Play With Us
We Love to Make Things With Him
He is Handsome
He Goes to Church with Us
He Makes Popcorn
He Gives Good Hugs
He Gives Good Kisses
He Tucks us In
He Plays Basketball with us
He is a Hard Worker
He Has Movie Nights with us
We Love to Play Ball with Him
He Wrestles With us
He's Nice
We Love Playing Soccer with Him

January . . . . .

The month of blah . . . . . . . I have to admit though, being in this 60 degree weather right now makes the month MUCH less blah.  Being able to take the kids outside and play every day does a lot to make us happy after the craziness of the Holidays are over. 

Fun crafts displayed in the fabulous weather.  I don't know WHERE my kids come from, but they love, love crafts.  I am not a crafty person myself, but I have learned to adjust. :)

Ice cream sundaes.  My kids think it's about as great as going to Disneyland. Especially if it's family night and we have sprinkles and whip cream. 

Puzzles.  Ava has become quite the little puzzle lover.  She can do them for hours and she's really good at it!  Kai has a shorter attention span when it comes to puzzles, but he still has some love for his wooden puzzles.

Picnics outside and Ava sleeping with her dolls and BofM.  Sadly, these days she is a better scripture reader than any of us and she can't even fully read yet! :)  She likes to go through and pick out all of the sight words that she knows.

 Lastly, Ava's 100 Day Project.  She was SOOOO proud to take her poster to school with the pom-poms and different colored buttons.  Can you tell how precise she is?  A bit of a perfectionist I would say.

Facebook Quotes . . . . .

Quotes and Notables from Facebook - 2011 (I keep hearing that Facebook is taking over blogging - well, I for one, don't want to see that happen so I'm merging them).  Plus, I think my kids are super funny.

1/21/12 - Kai just told me, "Watch out! I'm Pilates Man!"

12/31/11 - Mini Pizza's, Chutes & Ladders, and a Movie with my hubs and Littles! Can't think of a better way to celebrate the new year!

12/22/11 - I am so ready for Christmas and we are having so much fun at our house! Love Love Love this time of year.

12/19/11 - My 2 year old just said, "Mom, my belly hurts. We need to eat at Cafe Rio to make it feel better." A kid after my own heart . . . . . . .

12/2/11 - Ava has her own version of We Wish you a Merry Christmas but it involves a "figgy bunny" as opposed to figgy pudding.

11/17/11 - Ava and Kai are playing school. Ava told Kai to sit down and listen to her read. Kai said, "but I'm naked." (Which he is for some reason - don't judge me) Ava responded with, "It's okay. Naked people are welcome at my school."

11/16/11 - Happy Birthday to my amazing husband! Finally, he's old like me. :) On this, his 30th birthday, I want to list 30 reasons why he is the best ever . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Just teasing. I think a HUGE HAPPY BIRTHDAY will suffice!

11/9/11 - Sick kids = a good excuse to lay on the couch, cuddle and watch cartoons all day without any guilt! I hope my kiddos feel better quick. :(

11/4/11 - So a bought a pineapple a couple of days ago and it sounds so good right now, but I really don't want to cut it up. So I'm eating a cup of chocolate chips.

11/1/11 - My 2 year old's favorite snack is roasted red pepper hummus and pita chips. All this Halloween candy and that's what he's asking for.

10/27/11 - Just heard TLC's "Waterfalls" and promptly sang every last word of the rap to my kids. Not really sure how I feel about how happy it made me . . . . . . .

10/25/11 - I have decided I have a pretty diverse music selection for my morning run: Killers, Donny Osmond, Mae, Elvis, Single Ladies (Chipettes Version no less), Rusted Root, Enrique, Sister Hazel, Eve 6, Tim Mcgraw, Rascal Flatts, Bush, Weezer, Michael Buble, and Jesse McCartney . . . . . . I could go on, but I think you get my drift on the randomness.

10-13-11 - Kai got to stay home with daddy tonight while Ava went to my party with me. She had a blast, but when we got to the car she said, "I miss daddy and Kai! I hope they had a fun boy's night!" It was so cute. Who'd think that she torments her brother so much when they're together! :)
 
10-13-11 - We have officially killed off 7 of the 8 goldfish we have bought in the last 2 weeks. FAIL! Or is it a success? Hmmm . . . . . . My kids have gotten so used to fish dying that when the last one died Ava said, "There goes another one!" PLUS - when her fish died last week she looked at me with a big grin and said, "Cool! Mine lasted the longest!"

9-23-11 - I love my Cougars! I'm loyal through the good, the bad, and the ugly!  

8-16-11 - A nice lady at the restaurant tonight told me that my kids were "so fun and pleasant" to be around. I don't know what she was smoking. :)
 
8-2-11 - I love Jack Black on Yo Gabba Gabba so much.

7-31-11 - So after the misery of potty training Ava, I told Randy that Kai would have to train himself . . . . and he pretty much did. The other day he just walked in the bathroom and did it all by himself. Very impressed with my laid back kid. He's basically trained and he's barely 2!

7-26-11 - My kids are pretending that they are babies. They're crawling around, crying, and asking for bottles. My 5 year old was mad that I was organizing pictures on the computer and not paying attention to them and she said in frustration, "I can't believe you are playing on the computer when we were just born!!" Bad mom indeed.
 
6-13-11 - A little Bachelorette.......A little GOP Debate. I'm so well-rounded. :)

5-25-11 - My worst fear has been realized. My 2 yr old can officially climb out of the crib. Life as I know it is over.

5-19-11 - My kids favorite movie right now is the Princess Bride. I couldn't be more proud. :)
 
5-17-11 - Just watched Ava's last soccer game of the season. She scored two goals. On the way out of the game she excitedly said, "When do I start again?"

5-6-11 - Kai wanted corn dogs for lunch, not hot dogs. When I gave him the corn dogs, he took all of the breading off and ate the hot dog by itself. Weird kid.  
4-14-11 - One of Ava'a barbies just said to the other, "It's time for ballerina scouts!" Not exactly sure what that is . . .

4-4-11 - Just so everybody knows, I am ranked 16th out of 1199 brackets in my March Madness group. Word!

4-1-11 - ‎7 am and the usual morning lineup . . . . . . . :)

3-21-11 - Up when I really don't want to be. Luckily, I was able to watch the Saved By The Bell episode where Kasey Kasem chronicles the band "Zack Attack" which ends with the awesome "Friends Forever" song.

3-17-11 - It's 7:15, practically dark, my kids are outside with no shoes on, they are having a blast, and I'm watching HGTV. I feel like I should be doing something different, yet here I sit.  

3-9-11 - I love Wendy's in Utah because the kid's meals come with Frosty's. The other side of that is the fact that my kids want slurpees and I can't find a 7-Eleven anywhere.

1-21-11 - My Kai + (What I think is) a massive scorpion = Emergency Room. Not a fun night last night!