Valentine's Day

It's really crazy at our house right now, but we try to keep up with things. We've never done a lot of Valentine's Day, but usually hang out with each other. My husband did give me one of the best gifts EVER! I try to make a nice dinner instead of going out to dinner and I had asked him what he wanted to do. We've done shrimp and crab legs and stuff in the past. He texted me and said he would take care of it. That night, he came home from work and made us yummy pork chops and mashed potatoes. I am a huge sucker for mashed potatoes, which he knows. Once upon a time we used to have an annual Christmas party with the company he worked with for 11 years. They did catered dinners and would sometimes do it through Wallaby's and they had the BEST mashed potatoes. So, for Valentine's day, my husband found the recipe for the Wallaby's smashers potatoes and made them. It was fantastic! I had the leftovers for lunches for the rest of the week.
The boys also did Valentine's for school parties and made Valentine's boxes. I've never been very creative with those, but we came up with these boxes. In case you are wondering why Nate's box is so much smaller, that is the box his teacher provided them to use. With the little time we had that day, the boys were pretty happy with them. After all,what says Valentine's Day and love like Angry Birds and monsters!

Addi came up to me a minute ago when she was playing, saw my wallet, and asked "Can I borrow this?".

Shoveling the sidewalks

I was at work all day yesterday, but Jeff was home with the kids during the day, and then went to work for a few hours in the afternoon. It snowed quite a bit yesterday. In the afternoon. Zach as home from kindergarten, Nate was at school, and Addi was asleep. Zach wanted to shovel the sidewalks and went out and, with Jeff's help, did our yard. He then wanted to keep shoveling, and shoveled the sidewalks all the way down to the stop sign, which is three houses away. After he did the sidewalks, with Jeff's help, he did not one, not two, but three neighbors driveways. Granted, Jeff was helping and did 90% of the work, but it was all because Zach wanted to keep shoveling the sidewalks. Zach told Jeff at one point that the reason he wanted to shovel the neighbors sidewalks was because it made him feel good inside. I was so impressed. For a five year old I thought that was pretty cool.

Visiting Super Grandma

Jeff's grandma is, if I remember right, 99 years old right now. She is an amazing woman and we call her Super Grandma because she's not just great, she's super.
The kids love to see super grandma and she is always very sweet with them. She also has a candy dish always full of candy bars. My kids are always super excited to visit her. We went last Monday and one of the first things he did was ask Grandma to play catch with her. She was very sweet and played with him for a while.
Grandma had a little remote control car that the kids had a ball playing with it. They played with it in the bathroom since the car drove much better in there instead of the carpet. Nate and Addi were playing while the rest of us were watching. Zach took Grandma by the had and said "come on Grandma, let's go play". He lead her to a chair and she sat down while Zach brought blocks over and they played together. So cute! It totally made my day!
Towards the end, Zach sat down on the seat portion of the walker and said, "sit down Grandma, I'll give you a ride". Grandma gave him, and each of the other kids a ride.
This visit totally made my week! We love her so much!
Za

Need my guys

Another Addi post. She tells me sometimes that she needs her boys, or she needs her guys. They are, of course, Nate, Zach and sometimes her daddy is included in the mix. Most of the time, it's Nate and Zach. She loves and adores her boys and wants to be like them. They are usually very sweet with and play and read with her quite often. We had a conversation on the way home from the store where we went and the boys were home with Jeff. She, out of the blue, said "I need my boys". I asked her who her boys were and she said "Nathan and Zach". She loves them and it makes me so happy they get along. They read to her, play with her, and she insists on giving them both hugs and kisses at night. here's a picture of the boys reading to her recently:

Peaceful, Quiet Sundays, Part 2

Our other mentionable moment yesterday was at church. I usually don't let my kids color during church, but I did yesterday, partly because I really wanted to listen to the speaker, which was a mission homecoming. So, I let the kids bring their journals and they were supposed to be writing, or I was being lenient and letting them color. I had colored pencils on my lap and they could take one at a time. I had to sharpen some of the pencils and I had a sharpener with a cover to hold the shavings. Addi wanted to sharpen on herself and I didn't want to take the risk of a mess and told her I had to do it. She wanted her dad to do it, so I let her take it over to Jeff. Jeff held onto the sharpener throughout the rest of the meeting and at the end, when we were cleaning up, Addi was supposed to hand the sharpener back to me. She said "here mom" and proceeded to toss the sharpener at me while I was reaching out for it. This resulted in it hitting the floor, breaking open, and had a whole bunch of shavings land in the middle of the aisle, to the people sitting across from us. Yes, how fun. The kind gentleman sitting in the chairs across from us cleaned up the shavings that ended up by him. I got to use my hand to try to clean up the shavings the best I could and I got to get out a broom when the meeting ended and cleaned up the rest of them. The lady sitting behind us just laughed and enjoyed the moment with us. Lets just say, at this moment in life I don't usually have peaceful quiet Sundays. Instead, every day is an adventure.

Peaceful Quiet Sundays?????

So, I have long since decided that Sundays at my home are not peaceful and quite with my three kids. I had an 8 year old boy, a 5 year old boy, and a 2 year old girl this morning playing Superman. Needless to say, it was not peaceful and quiet at our home. They each had blankets tied around them and they were running through the house. At one point, I had Jeff get out his camera and he took some pictures of the kids jumping off the bed.

Daddy's little girl

The other day, Jeff was getting ready for work and Addi was playing with the. Jeff was holding Addi and Addi put her hands on either side of Jeff's face and said "You not going anywhere". Jeff got a kick out of that. She is definitely daddy's little girl. There are times when she'll wake up in the morning and I'll be at the computer. I'll say hi and she's ignore me and go crawl into bed with Jeff to cuddle with her daddy. Jeff also loves it when he gets a hug and kiss from her and I don't.

Her favorite phrases right now are "Just a minute mom" or "not ready yet". She likes to do things on her time whenever she can

Addi's comment this morning

So, Addi woke up and climbed into bed this morning. This was part of our conversation this morning:

"Addi, are you silly?"
"No"
"Addi, are you funny?"
"No"
"Then, what are you?"
"I firecracker!"
"Are you a firecracker?"
"Yes!"