Valentine's Day

All my kids made Valentine boxes this year even though Henry's teacher was the only one that said to and James doesn't even go to school. 

 He did this all by himself. He used the glue gun and found all the materials and only threw it off the table in frustration once.

 Erica made hers out of a cracker box.

James had no idea what he was doing but if it involves cutting and gluing, he's all about it.

 I think Sarah's looks like a food truck.

Every year my kids get a package from my sister-in-law Lisa. She is the Santa of Valentine's Day to my kids. It doesn't matter what I get them, they anxiously watch the mail for Lisa's Valentines.

And then they went to school. Henry and Sarah wanted school lunch so I didn't get to cut their sandwiches with the heart cookie cutter like I like to. 😞 And I forgot to give Justin his special box of cereal to take to work and then I spent the day getting ready for our trip to Arizona so it was kind of a weird, atypical Valentines day for me. 

I got my kids each a new book and a bag of candy per tradition. I tried 4 stores to find cherry hearts and these heart suckers. Stokes in Salem for the win! I put several pieces in each of their bags along with new insulated water bottles that were waiting for them in their seat in the car and off we went!

UP NEXT: Dyes go big in Arizona.

Erica Turns 6

The countdown ends! Erica turned 6 on February 5th.

 While Dad made her birthday breakfast of pancakes and baby brats (sausages) she opened her presents. She got a color by sticker book....

 Jerky sticks that she thought were from Justin....

 Funyuns and Sour Patch Kids....

 Wooden dolls for her to paint....

 A couple of books....

 A camping shirt....

 And a double-sided pillow

 She wanted a dolphin themed birthday (?) but I think the narwhal on the backside of a pillow would suffice.

 Sarah gave her a blanket that she no longer wanted but Erica loves.

When I asked her what she wanted to do for birthday, all she wanted was to go to Macey's and buy anything she wanted. She took squeezits as her class treat and then after school we went to Macey's. She got mac n cheese and an ice cream cone from the deli and then picked out some Pringles, a bottle of Sprite and some other treats.

 When we got home I worked on her cake while she and James played and watched shows. For dinner we picked up my niece Maddie and went to Brick Oven with Justin's parents.

 She wanted an owl cake and even drew a picture of what she wanted it to look like.

How did I do? 

 She was very happy.

 She had wanted an owl for years but always changed her mind at the last minute and chose something else. I really wanted her to stick to it this year because I don't know when she's going to grow out of animal cakes.

 My mom left her present with me before they left for the winter. She gave her a stuffed hippo...

 And a porcelain doll. This brought back a lot of memories. My mom gave me a porcelain doll every Christmas for years.

 This is one of three dresses from Nadine. She took Erica shopping the week before to pick them out and she had so much fun.

 She had a very fun and easy day, just how she likes it.

Here are six things you may not know about Erica:

1. She was my fastest delivery and most painful. The epidural did not work.

 2. She was my easiest baby. She was so content just watching Sarah and Henry. I never minded when she woke up from her nap.

 3. She's my sneakiest kid. She steals candy from anyone in the house. Hide your treats.

 4. She's easy to teach. We practice reading every day after school and she never gets frustrated or annoyed. She just keeps working. (She's a great reader and very good at math.)

 5. She is NOT a morning person. She doesn't sleep in but that doesn't mean she wants to be up and about and get ready for school. Her perfect morning would be an hour of shows, wander up for breakfast, color or make something, then get dressed. She is never very hungry before school and only eats a few bites of something. After school she eats a huge lunch to make up for it.

6. She is very messy and a terrible cleaner. She leaves stuff in every room of the house and it is a battle to get her to clean anything up.

 *Bonus fact* She does not like to be center of attention and gets super bored when she's on her own (middle child thing?). She gets embarrassed when she does something wrong and just getting called out for it is punishment enough.

Here's her all about me page.

 She loves these shorts she got from a neighbor. She wore them over everything for a few days.

  These shorts inspired some great workouts with my resistance bands. I especially like how James pulled up his pant legs.

Every year I'm so sad that she's getting older but watching her grow has been one of the best parts of my life. Happy birthday!!!!

In the bleak midwinter

The biggest news around here is that James no longer takes naps. On January 27 approximately 12:52 pm James climbed out of his crib, walked down the stairs to hand me a Lego car he built for me and then said he was going back to bed. He did not go back to bed. Well maybe he climbed back in but he must have climbed back out because I heard him quietly playing in his room for the next hour until he got bored then came downstairs and acted like my universe wasn't completely destroyed.

We switched the kids rooms around that night. James and Erica switched places so now the boys share a room. Erica is now sleeping in the crib we converted to a toddler bed. It's tiny but it's all her own so she doesn't care one bit. Henry still shares a room but James is much tidier than Erica (James puts his dirty clothes in the basket) so he's happy. 

Here's Erica's room now. It's always been the baby room and will have the rocking chair in there until I find another place for it.

A side-by-side comparison of how it usually looks versus how it looks clean.

This is the boys' room.

It took me a week to realize I can go places in the afternoon.

James wakes up super early like Henry does. Which means James is bear from 2pm on and I have to be watchful that he doesn't fall asleep somewhere in the house or while we're driving. If I can keep him awake, he crashes at 7pm so that makes bedtime simpler.

He's my little bud and I will miss this age so much.

On Fridays I help in Erica's class for an hour. On our way out of the building James and I saw Henry in the hall. We loudly whispered his name but he didn't near us so I took a picture instead so I could show him later that I saw him.

Cold, muddy, or snowy days means we get out the table tunnel.

They play together nicely for the most part but there is some head bonking once in a while.

In an effort to simplify my life, I no longer pay my kids each week for their jobs or have different rewards that they can choose from. They are very good at doing their jobs because they know that can't do anything they want to do until they do. Instead, at the end of the month we go out to do something fun as a family. For January we went to an ice cream shop called Eli's in Payson that sells Aggie and BYU ice cream. It was perfect!

On Thursday Sarah was recognized at the school's student of the month ceremony.

We braved the snowy roads to get to the school at 8:15, ate doughnuts and juice and listened to all the teachers in the school brag about their student of the month.

 Her teacher talked about how hard Sarah works and how she always does her best work. James ran up in the middle to give her a hug.

 The smart girl that she is, she saw the typo on her certificate. Can you?

This is what it looked like that afternoon. Ironically, the schools weren't closed like they were on Monday and we had way more snow.

Today was the 5th grade wax museum. Sarah was Ruth Wakefield, the inventor of the chocolate chip cookie and a true American hero, if you ask me. She said she got really tired holding this pose for most of the day.

Erica's birthday was also this week but I'll save that for a separate post.