Valentines Day 2014

Valentines Day seemed to go by so quickly this year. It’s one of those holidays that if the kids weren’t around I wouldn’t celebrate. Since we did have a few things happen I’ll quickly cover those moments.

Karly went to her first Valentine’s Day party at her preschool on Thursday 13th. She was very excited to share her Valentine’s cards with her friends.

 

Then on Valentine’s Day she and Hope had a Valentine’s Day party at their daycare. Noelle and Thomas both had parties in their classes also. It was kind of a hectic morning so I wasn’t able to get pictures of all the kids.  

As you can see in this one, Karly did not want to participate in the photo session.

I could not believe how much stuff the kids brought home from their parties. This is going to make me sound really old….. I remember being in school and getting a Valentine’s Day card from my classmates that was in a small white envelope and it was a real treat if there was a conversation heart in the envelope.  I put all of the kids candy together and was able to fill up a grocery bag with all the candy, pencils, trinkets, and erasers.  It was a real eye opener!

Here are the cards that Kelly made for the kids to give to their friends.

Thursday night after Kelly and Dave dropped the kids off, I went to get some milk for Hope and found these. They were absolutely fabulous!!! 

Then on Valentines Day I was given these beautiful flowers by my Dad.

All and All we had a great Valentine’s Day holiday here.

Family trampoline fun

It was such a beautiful day that we spent the majority of it outside playing on the trampoline.

The kids think it’s so fun when the adults get on to jump with them. The adults think it’s fun to see how high we bounce the kids. It’s a win win for everyone! 

Here Hope is confused between running and jumping but either way she is having fun.

I wish I would’ve thought to get the camera out sooner. Kelly and I were having a contest to see who could get the highest and who could touch their toes so I had to get the camera out to capture it all. Here are the results.


I think Kelly was the clear winner on this one. 
Here are some quick video’s of the kids doing their “tricks”. I’m really glad that Kelly and I didn’t have the bright idea of videoing us doing ours!!! 

I think Santa did pretty good this year with his gifts. There has been a lot of quality family time spent on it in just a couple of months. 

Family Trampoline Fun VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

Noelle’s new classroom

Anyone that knows Noelle knows how much she enjoys teaching. Since the time Noelle started preschool she has played school on a daily basis. This is by far one of her most favorite things to do. It keeps her busy for hours. It’s a lot of fun to sit back and observe her (never letting her know that your doing it) while she is teaching.  She has had great teachers over the past few years that have been such great role models for her. She starts her day taking attendance and then taking the hot lunch orders. Then she gets right in to whatever is on her mind at the time. Her lesson might consist of reading a book, doing workbook pages, math problems or it could be a variety of things. The funniest part is when she is disciplines one of her students. The names of her students are the kids from her day care or her class at school. A lot of the times she repeats whatever she has heard the teacher tell them during class. What Kelly and I have learned is to really watch what we say when we discipline one of the kids because those are the exact words she uses with her class. 

So, for Christmas she asked me to get her a “classroom”. So that’s what Auntie did. We spent this afternoon setting up her classroom.

This is the best picture I could get due the way her bedroom is set up but the letters and numbers around the room. Then there is a chart with colors and another one with numbers to 100.  I forgot about getting a pointer so she improvising with a wooden spoon. 

Happy New Year

I’ve had some pretty bad luck over the past few months. Back in November my refrigerator broke, a few days later while cleaning out all the nasty food that spoiled in the said refrigerator the pipes from the garbage disposal backed up and all the nastiness backed up into the washer pipes and ended up in the garage. My car battery died and needed to be replaced and I got a nail in my tire that needed to be fixed. The week of Christmas the pilot light went would not light so I had almost a week and a half of no hot water (luckily I was able to stay at Kelly’s so I could have a hot shower). Then on New Years Eve my garage door opener decided to break. So, my first purchase of 2014 was a new garage door opener. 

On the positive side I did a pretty good job at saving money in 2013 and had the money to fix the things that needed fixing. I also have very handy and supportive family members that were here on a moments notice willing to help me fix the things that needed to be fixed.  I only needed to pay someone to install the garage door opener. I don’t know where I’d be without such supportive people in my life.
 
Kelly and Dave had to work on New Years day so after finding my garage door opener Noelle, Karly, Hope and I got the chance to hang out. We took a ride out to Wal-Mart with Grandma to get Pop some new socks for his birthday and some other things.

Noelle and Karly found this Duck Dynasty hat and thought it would look great on Hope.

Then we came home a played a little. Hope decided to take Noelle’s snack and give them to her baby doll. Noelle was a good sport and tried to feed them to the baby and Hope. Hope didn’t find that funny. 

         

While Hope napped Noelle, Karly and I did some baking. While we were at the store the girls picked out a Funfetti cake mix with hot pink frosting. Karly decided that the cake needed to “fun” to so we used some dye to make it purple.

We spent a little time talking about the New Year and what that means. Made a special dinner, played a little more and took baths.  Then they got to spend time decorating their cakes and eating them.

I think that the girls were in bed by 8:00 which gave me a little time to relax and enjoy the rest of the evening. It was a great day and perfect way to start 2014. I’m looking forward to all the adventures that this year is going to bring.

Christmas Day

There’s not much to say other than we had a great day.

The kids got up early so they had to wait about 30 minutes before all the adults were ready for them to start opening their gifts. While they waited Kelly made snowmen out of donuts for a quick pre breakfast snack.

 

As you can see they were a hit with Hope.

I just loved this picture of Karly.

 

Hope made her way into a box and decided that would be more fun than playing with the toys she got.

 

I had a special delivery on my car which turned out to be a huge tent. I can’t wait to go camping this summer. It’s going to be fantastic. 

After putting up the tent. Karly decided to bring her microphone in and have a concert. I have a video that I may add later, blogger is having issues and wont upload it now.

 

After our concert by Karly, everyone went upstairs to relax. It was nice. We had about a three hour nap/rest time in the middle of the day.

Kelly and I then got started on a quick dinner since she and Dave had to leave for work. We made enchilada's, rice, salad and cider. FABULOUS!! 

 

Once again our mischievous, Hope , found her way to onto the table.

 

It was a fabulous, relaxing day spent with family. What more could you ask for. I’m so so grateful for the Holiday season and all it stands for. I’m grateful to be able to spend the holidays with the kids and helping to form memories that will last a lifetime.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is the one holiday out of the year that I host at my house. I get a little stressed out because my house is so tiny but it always turns out just fine. This year Mom made a pork roast, I made “crack potatoes”, and Kelly made a corn casserole and fruit salad. For dessert I made my first completely from scratch chocolate satin pie and reindeer cakes for the kids.

 

 

After dinner we opened our gifts from the names that we pulled from a hat.

Noelle had me and I had her….

Thomas had Hope

Dave had Thomas

Karly had Kelly

Hope had Karly

and Kelly had Dave

While we were cleaning up the kitchen someone left the refrigerator open and Hope found her way into it and got her hands into my pie. She was very proud of herself!

 

The reindeer cakes were a huge hit with the kids.

The kids were dressed in what Pop liked to call their Little House on the Prairie Christmas pajamas. I thought they were awfully cute.

After dessert we hurried and cleaned up the house, packed up the car and headed back to Kelly’s so the kids put cookies and milk out for Santa.