Valentine Treat

My parents sent a box full of fun Valentine treats for our family. Each of the kids got a little Valentine tin with a cookie inside and a Valentine card attached. They were so excited! Brooke couldn't wait to eat hers: :)

Yum...yum...yum... Goin' to town on the cookie...love the lips

We love you, Brookie! You make us smile every day. What a sweet Valentine you are.

Christmas Playgroup

The week before Christmas I had our playgroup over to decorate cookies. It was a huge hit and I think the kids and moms all had a good time.

Here is the group working hard on their cookies.Everett enjoying his green creation.

Jack wasn't so sure about me with the camera. :)

Most of the kids enjoyed licking the frosting off the knives. :) Here's Carli!

Kalen worked diligently frosting her cookie.

You can tell Finley had green on her cookie. :) Charlotte didn't even decorate. She just ate!

Visit from Grandpa and Grandma

We were so blessed to have my parents come stay for a few days after Brooke was born. We blessed her that weekend and had lots of fun with the grandparents. It was also Valentine's weekend so we did lots of fun things.

Grandma was nice enough to make Valentine cookies with the kids. They all loved it and had a blast rolling and cutting out the cookies.

Grandpa had fun showing the kids some new computer games and some fun pictures he has on his computer.

We got a babysitter on Valentine's and took Brooke with us to Edelweiss and had fabulous and very authentic German food. Ben spent 2 years in Germany on his mission and was very impressed with the food here. We all loved it! Brooke slept through the entire evening--what a nice girl. :)

Thanks for coming to visit us! We loved having you here!!!

Baking cookies

At the beginning of this week I finally got around to making sugar cookies with the kids--the girls, anyway (Brandon is not so into this stuff anymore, but he enjoyed frosting them later! Too bad I didn't get a picture of that). It always ends up ok, but I don't look forward to the work and the mess that comes with it. Call me a bad mom. :) The girls had fun, though--and I did, too! They had fun rolling the dough, cutting them out and placing them on the pans. They turned out perfectly. We didn't get around the frosting them until later.

Carli rolling the dough.Kate and Carli. I think Kate has a mouth full of dough. :)
Megan with the finished product. Aren't they pretty?

Mom's Visit

The weekend before Halloween we were blessed to have my mom come visit for a few days. She teaches high school business classes so she doesn't get to come whenever she wants (which would probably be more like once a month instead of twice a year). :) We love it when she comes! It is just great to spend time with her since we don't get to be together very often with her living in Utah so we count ourselves very lucky when she can get a weekend away! We are like that with all of our family since we all live in different states.

Our weekend started out Saturday morning at Brandon's soccer tournament. The kids had fun taking walks with Grandma around the soccer field. Brandon's team won their first game, but lost the second. Mom treated us to lunch in between games. Here are some pictures from the day!

Mom, Carli, and Megan.

Daddy and Carli going for a little walk.Here's Brandon going for the ball.Kate really needs some teeth for Christmas. Got any Santa?Carli loved being with Grandma.Sunday we attended church and the kids were rehearsing for the Primary program so my mom was able to sit in and see it since she wasn't able to be here the weekend they performed it. I was glad she got to see the kids all say their parts and hear Kate sing her solo. Mom thought it was pretty great that she could see it! After church we make sugar cookies in the shape of pumpkins and ghosts. The kids had a blast, of course. Carli especially like eating the dough.

Here she is eating it out of the bowl.

She even ate what was stuck to the rolling pin!

Brandon liked "throwing" the dough, like with pizza dough.

Megan covered in flour enjoying her cookie.

I'm so grateful for such a wonderful mom who loves to come and spend time with us and know her grandkids. They all adore her!