Valentine's Day {2011}

Not to get sappy or anything, but we've had a pretty fun weekend full of Valentine Goodness.

♥ ♥ ♥

Friday night we watched our friends' two kids so they could have a romantic date. In turn, they took our three kids and a bag of Cadbury Mini eggs so we could have a romantic date.

We went to a fun little diner in Ucon, called "the Rusty Lantern", split a plate of delicious prime rib, and saved room for dessert later.

After dinner we made our way to our favorite bookstore for 'said' romantic date.  I got the idea for our 'bookstore scavenger hunt' from HERE.  (love those dating divas!  "Strengthening marriages, one date at a time!")

Towards the end we switched 'romantic poem reading' for 'perusing photography paraphernalia', which was just fine with both of us.  We even shared a chair.  Do you know how HARD it is to find an empty chair in BN on a SATURDAY night??? We got lucky.

Then we headed over to Kiwi Loco, which is a self-serve frozen yogurt joint.  We had so much fun!  And we'll NEVER take our children there.  Ever.  They have an entire counter of toppings...

By the end of our four hour date, I felt crippled.  But I also felt very ...um...  Sexy.  (I can't believe I just wrote that.  My Dad read's this blog!)  My hair was a bit out of sorts, as my blow dryer wasn't working, and I had to get creative with the space heater and gel, but these sure made going out on the town painful fun!

Thank you, Sara and Tev for trading babes for dates.  :)

♥ ♥ ♥ 

I was bound and determined to do something sappy for my sweetheart, but what do you do for someone who is gone from 6 am till 2 am the next day???

We sneakily gave daddy a heart attack!

The boys helped...they were totally stoked that I let them get on the hood of the car to put hearts on the windshield.  Silly boys!

101 hearts for 101 ways we love our daddy...without the list, because lets face it; cutting out that many hearts and taping them in 33* F weather just took way too long.  Plus, he literally didn't have time to read a lengthly list...He barely had time to remove all the tape and hearts before heading to his second job.

But we sure had fun!

♥ ♥ ♥

Of course, the day would NOT be complete without some good food.

Lunch for two little valentines???  I'm pretty sure you don't want a picture of Kortlen's lunch.  In addition to his regular diet, he had pureed sweet potatoes and corn.  Gag.

And my friend who was also husbandless (yes, it's a word) invited us over for some sugary fondue goodness and silliness.  Such a great way to end a pretty good day.

Hope you had a Valentine's Day filled with {LOVE}.

Sweets for Sunday

If I keep this up, I'm never going to lose these last stubborn 30 pounds!!!

Last Sunday:

Simple brownie mix (thank you, Betty!), cut with a Heart-shaped cookie cutter, cool whip and heated raspberry and huckleberry jam.  Sounds and looks fancy; simple and rich.


Yesterday: 

Good intentions, bad idea.  Popcorn balls from my 'Betty Crocker Cook Book' with added food coloring and red sprinkles for our festive occasion.  More than two minutes needed to brush and brush and brush and floss afterwards.  I came pretty close to losing a filling on this one.  So did Tanner, and Ryan.  It tasted good, and looked good.  Lots of fiber, and 0 fat.  It still wasn't worth the hassle of scraping my teeth with a rasp.  LOL!

{every day}

I just want a glimpse inside his brain to see how it works.  

He amazes me {every day}.

This little boy makes the silliest faces.  

He makes me laugh {every day}.

And this one?  

He melts my heart.  

{every day}. 

I'm thankful for these little boys.  {every day}.  

I'm so glad they're in our life!

{District Champions}

I was never really involved in sports during high school unless you count:

• being THE swim team
• cheer-leading for one year, I think
• attempting to run track and participate in the shot-put
• and playing in the pep-band

I guess you could say I was kind-of a nerd.  Part of that stems from the fact that I broke my pinky finger the very first day of my very first volleyball practice; and part of it stems from the fact that even in church ball, I sat the bench/stage.  I was that awesome.

However, whenever my little brothers or sisters are involved, and because of their awesomeness and mad sports skills, I try to be there, in the crowd, cheering them on.

My sisters were both VERY involved, even in the top three valuable players on both their volleyball and basketball teams.

Katelyn's Basketball teem was UNDEFEATED 20-0 this season. That has NEVER been done in the history of sports at our teeny-tiny little high school.  EVER!  Even boys' basketball and football!  And I think that includes non-district games as well.  

Graduating Seniors, Katelyn front and center

To make the season even sweeter, their team earned District Champions by winning against one of the meanest, most un-sportsmanlike teams in the district.  We're talking these girls blatantly trip and pinch and throw elbows, just to irritate and give welts.  

Way to go North Gem Cowboys!  

Lady Cowboys

WE LOVE our team.  

we LOVE OUR team. 

we love OUR TEAM.

WE. LOVE. OUR. TEAM!

Me, Katelyn, our mom, and Deseret. 

Clay took the picture and dad was off visiting, as usual.

Ryan was very sweet, and offered to stay home with all three boys, so I could go and enjoy the game.  

A Letter I'll Never Send

Dear Potential Employers,

My husband is seriously awesome.  But if one of you can't cut him a break soon, you might risk missing out on all he can do for you.  We've only applied to work for you BECAUSE he's qualified and BECAUSE he wants to work for you and help you and be a part of your awesomeness.

And if you choose someone else, that's fine.  They may or may not want the job as much as we do, but know that a simple rejection letter would be appropriate, if not nice.

Speaking of which, could you tell him what ISN'T working for you on his resume so he can work on improving it?  Because he's worked so hard, and he's tired of being paid less than earth worms for the work he does.  And quite frankly, the checkbook is tired of it, too.

My kids also need a bigger place to play, and I am going nuts, too...so a paycheck to go along with his qualifications would be superb.  We didn't quit a job in retail so we could earn a Master's Degree in another field just to return to retail.  If we really wanted a job in retail, we would have quit long before we were ever ahead in our education!!!

Just sayin'.  You could at least give him a chance.

Sincerely,
Your potential employee's wife

***Needless to say, it's been a downer of a day.  

{Love Notes}

I wanted to switch things up a bit for Valentines...I'm tired of making (and eating) sugar cookies.  Plus, we just got back from the dentist with Tanner.  It was not good.  *insert hanging-head-shake here*

On a happy note, everyone likes "love notes", no??? Since we're working on learning our alphabet and how to write the letters in it at our house, I had a brilliant idea.

It helped that I found some great finds at Target in the dollar bins:

10-pack of pencils= $1 

White tin mail boxes= $1 each

(of course there are additional perks to having a husband that works for Target...employee discount!!!...if you can't pay 'em what they're worth, give 'em a discount!!!)

I made at least one of the mailboxes for our family...hoping to promote love notes and pretty pictures...

Here's a .jpg for you, if you want it.*

Inside there is plenty of note-paper to write love-notes on.  Because our envelope supply is needed to write to Sister Crandall, I made a few of these for the boys...

Then I made up these little Valentine's Cards (feel free to snag the .jpgs below and use if you'd like!) that was super fast and easy, printing 6 to a page on card stock.  I suppose I could have let Tanner cut them out, too, but then there'd be no fun for me.  (I'm kinda obsessive about 'school tools' like scissors, paper cutters, paper clips, hole-punches, new pencils, new notepads, you get the idea.)

And had a little boy sign them.

And now we just have to deliver them!  (act surprised if you are one of the lucky ones!!!)

He was super excited!  And because most of his little friends are learning to write their letters, I thought this would be a fun switch for sugary goodness.  Maybe I can save them some money on their dental bill, even if I can't on my own.  :)

*You're welcome to use the .jpgs to create valentine cards for your own family...I'd love to see what you do with them!!!

{today}

was a wonderful day.

I was made breakfast in bed. (But ate it at the table, due to a little someone unloading his little tummy in my bed, ahem, Kortlen.)

Ryan ran all of my errands.  Even picking up some fun extras, like strawberries and whipping cream for a healthier version of birthday cake:  Strawberry Shortcake.

My mom and Clay and Deseret took me out for a healthy lunch at Subway.  It was so much fun to have them here to share my special day with!

I was showered with love and a few exciting gifts...the best one being from Tanner and Taylor: Going to bed the way good little boys do.

A dear friend watched my boys so I could attend a Temple Session.  (Ryan had to work.)  It was a wonderful break with peace and quietness that I've missed the last few weeks.

I watched a good chick-flick wrapped up on the couch in a warm blanket waiting for my sweetheart to get home.

And slept pretty good, considering I was up with a nursing baby, and a 3 year old who had an ear-ache and a 5 year old who had charlie-horses in his feet.

Even on such a momentous day, a mother's work is never done {but I wouldn't want it any other way}.

At the end of the day

(Lengthy Update:  we're not dead, or even pouting...just more busy that usual.)

Last week I taught Tanner's Joy School class, and I spent most of my evenings getting ready for that...working on various projects for friends (formal alteration, scripture bags for the boys, a never-ending stack of pants to mend, and organizing), and trying to keep order here at home.

Thursday, we up and went to Chesterfield to spend some time with my sisters and brother, as Ryan's been working from 6am till sometimes as late as midnight.  I figured he'd be able to get some sleep if we were gone, and we'd be able to have a break from our teeny-tiny apartment.  It was great to 'get away', especially from all the 'electronics' for those few days.

So how are we?

Ryan is still applying for about 4 jobs a week.  It's pretty draining, and he's burned out from it all...both emotionally and mentally.  Truth is, I'm pretty drained, too.  At least we're getting rejection letters.  Not that it's a good thing, but it's not very encouraging to even apply if you NEVER hear ANYTHING back!

We looked at a loverly house last week that we thought was in our pricerange, and I fell in love with it.  Beautiful crown moldings, tons of space, we wouldn't have to do much to it...maybe paint a room or two....and then we realized that he really does have a crummy paycheck, though we are able to pay our bills and eat food.  *chuckle*  We're not destitute, but tight.  And that's alright.  It isn't the end of the world. We have so many blessings.  A surplus of money is just not one of them.

I have been trying to exercise each day, and some days are more successful than others.  It's frustrating to be doing a kick-boxing routine and whack a three or five year old in the head...Most of the time it's their own fault, though.  This week I started the 'rule' that they can't get out of bed until mommy is done exercising.  I'll let them come out and 'cool-down' with me, and I'm much less likely to jab my shoes into an unsuspecting child.

Tanner has been really excited about writing his letters of the alphabet, practicing the piano, and helping me make our meals.  He has a few 'obsessive' areas, but we're (Me and Tanner) working on 'relaxing' a little bit more and not being so uptight.  He gets pretty agitated if anything is out of place, or his routine is messed with.  He talks with the intensity of a stock-broker, but is pretty loving, understanding, and curious on so many levels.  He's a really good helper, and for the most part, has grown out of his 5 year phase of being a 'hard' kid.  In reflecting back on our parenting, Tanner's behavior was very RARELY the problem; our parenting skills were in survival mode at best, and we've come a long way.  Still room for us to improve, but we are able to parent, instead of just being a warm body in the room.

Taylor is beginning to be a little spit-fire of a boy.  He loves to keep up with Tanner, and enjoys drawing letters, learning from Tanner new parts to songs and being a tease to baby Kort-wen.  He's got potty-training down, which has saved us $$$ on diapers.  However, if he gets ticked off at me, he'll deliberately pee in his pants.  Little turkey!

Kortlen is officially rolling ev.ry.where.  If he sees something he wants (which is everything!) he'll just roll right over to it.  It's exciting, yet slightly dangerous, considering his two older brothers LOVE marbles and LOVE coins.  We have to be on our toes all the time to make sure choking hazards don't make it into his mouth!  He's also figured out how to eat pureed squash, peas, bananas and peaches.  His favorite is sweet potatoes.  He learned how to raspberry/spit out any type of rice cereal...to my frustration.

So all in all, we're doing pretty good.

When I get a camera again, I'll update you with some of the projects I've done.  :)  Hopefully it's sooner than later.

And at the end of the day, I'm ready for bed and a chance to start my routine all over again.