Love Day

The question looms on a made up holiday like Valentine's Day: is it really worth all the trouble to make it fun and special for those you love? The conclusion I always come to is: yes. Yes, it is. 

This Valentine's Day I had the pleasure of making Sienna's preschool valentines to give away to 11 classmates. I say "pleasure" in jest. I was caught without a plan the day before and had to use what I had on hand. Thanks to an RS lesson in which I'd cut up a ton of hearts the week before, plus a bag of suckers my mom sent, plus Google, the Valentines came together. I present you: "Crafty meets I don't care."

 Whatever works, people! Sienna was thrilled. She had a really fun party at school and came home with a bag of loot.

 It was so fun to watch her open everything. And then consume all the contents!

I did the old "lipstick on the mirror" trick before everyone woke up.

This shirt came in the mail in the afternoon. Adam got a kick out of it when he came home from work.

 Noah dumped water all over the floor during bath time. He was then deposited in his crib to cry for 15 minuntes until dad came home and rescued him.

 And then suddenly dinner appeared on the table! Hahah. Yeah right. There is a price to pay for going out of your way to make a day special. The price on that evening was a cranky mom and kids. But once the kids were in bed, I put food in my mouth, looked at my husband and sanity was restored. Ahhhh. It's so nice to have the best Valentine in the whole wide world.

 I'm a dork. Also, Adam sent me flowers. Blue irises. I love them.
Dessert, aka the best part, was chocolate cream puffs with pink cream cheese/whipped cream filling and chocolate sauce.

More lipstick on the mirror .... and goodnight!

A Dose of Snow

Arizona's pretty amazing when it comes to versatility of climate. Right now it's mild and lovely in Phoenix, but drive two hours north and you've got genuine winter as I know it. We spent last weekend in Flagstaff thanks to Adam's co-worker inviting us. They have a house in Munds Park, 15 miles outside of Flagstaff. We drove up on a clear Friday night and the next morning we woke up to a wintry white wonderland.

They have two kids, a boy and a girl, too, and their mom is 8.5 months pregnant with a third! They were sooooo nice to host us.

Especially because this little guy kept us (mostly me) up all night. He is sick AGAIN and I was the one to do combat with him and his stuffed up nose from dusk until dawn. I think I slept a total of 45 minutes that night. Here he is, miserable, but with squeezable applesauce and Martha Stewart Living, things were looking up.

A bright-eyed, cheery Bird, ready to hit the sledding slopes.

Adam bit off more than he could chew by starting the day off with a very steep hill that, unbeknownst to him, had a big jump/drop off at the end. The sled broke, flew out from under them, and he and Sienna tumbled through the air in a daddy-daughter snowball.

Yikes!

Let's try that again. Down the hill they went to a much smaller hill.

Noah loved the mini-hill and went down five times with his daddy.

And then he wanted to be held by mommy.

It was a cooooooooold day.


After sledding we went to their favorite Indian/Nepalese/Tebetian buffet restaurant. It was really good!

And back at the house, finally warming up by the wood burning stove and watching a movie.


May we please own a home in Flagstaff someday, too!