Love is in the Sky, Love Shacks, Love Cookies, Love Valentine's Day Weekend!

I love Valentine's Day and this year we did a whole weekend of celebration for it. We tried some new things and did some fun traditional things. All in all we felt the LOVE!
Andy started it out by being terribly creative and romantic on Friday night. He planned the whole date and I didn't have any idea what was going to happen. But we ended up going to a variety of place. His theme for the night was "For the Love" and at each place before we went in or did what we were supposed to do, he had written a poem that he read to me. Yes, he is pretty amazing. Each place was some place that was significant in our marriage and yes his poem are pretty amazing. I told him he can be chief poet laurete at our house now! I resign! I sure love that man...
Then Saturday I went to the cutest boutique/home sale. Paisley Pear Boutique is so cool. If you get the chance you need to find out where they are having a show. It is great! They have a little bit of everything and their prices are great. The cute little head wrap that you see here is one of my many purchases.
This was mother nature's Valentine's day gift the night we did our love shacks. How can you not be appreciative of all of the beauty we have around us. I love taking pictures out our backyard and seeing the different amazing sunsets. Also on Saturday we did love shacks. This was a new tradition and I've decided that I love it. Chirstmas was just too busy and is always too busy. I had leftover gingerbread kits that we just didn't get to. We just never found the time. So this year, we did them on Valentine's Day. We bought some Valentine's cand for the kids and sorted all of the red or pink or purple out from the kit and we made our love shacks. We did this while listening to the B52's sing the love shack...it as quite festive and fun.

Andy helped Sonnet and Peyton had his own ideas...

Peyton had a cute idea and then got bored as you can see, however he said on the other side there was a fire coming out of the roof. I asked him if it was my bedroom..he obviously didn't get the joke or think it was funny.

Sonnet definitely had the most colorful and cute...but she had some good help. He knows all about making a great love shack! (wink, wink).

Then it was onto sugar cookie making. I sure do know now why we only do this once a year. It is very time consuming. This year Peyton wanted some chocolate sugar cookies so we had a lot of cookies this year. I don't know if they are worth it, but they sure are good once you get done. I think we started at 3:00 p.m. and ended at about 9:00 p.m. But I decided to do different colors this year rather than doing just pink. Peyton, of course, had to do moose and cowboy hats...lips and hearts were not his style.

The green moose and purple hats.

Licking frosting is Sonnet's favorite job! Here are here cookies.

The decorating crew ...you can see the big hearts were for Peyton's class for his Valentine's Day party. I remember as a kid when Sharon Park did the big huge hearts...They were one of my favorite memories. I had to do them for my kid...I hope they will remember them...even if they don't eat them.

These were Sonnet's finished cookies...

These were some of the finished versions of all of the cookies we made...there were a lot!!!!

On the actual day of Valentine's, I woke up pretty early to get ready for school. As I was in my bathrobe with really wet hair, I saw the sunrise. I couldn't resist taking pictures. I went out on my porch in the above mentioned attire and I took these pictures. It was like the sun was saying Happy Valentine's Day.

Then that evening we had Valentine's hunts and received some small Valentine's tokens. Andy and I exchange the same gift every year...he writes a continuing story and write poems for him. We are amassing quite a collection of each. It is one of our favorite things. This year we got the kids pillow pets and Peyton got a big huge Hershey kiss (he loves chocolate) and Sonnet got some great new spring clothes! (I know kind of boring, but what girl doesn't love new clothes!)

Got caught eating his chocolate.

She loved the ladybug...

I Strongly Dislike January...But the 14th (and 13th) is great!

These three pictures were taken on a day that we had a cold day. It was on those days that I decided I really do not like January. It is very cold, dark, and depressing even though we had two cold days (which were very nice). Another shot of the nasty cold...We also had a nice surprise one day in cold January...our drains started to burble. You kind of get sick feeling when your house starts making the sounds your stomach makes before it blows. We knew something wasn't right. We didn't know if it was pipes or a backup...it just ends up we had too much poop (and other stuff for that matter). Apparently when you live in a house and aren't on a city sewer system that you need to get it pumped regularly. So of course my awesome dad knew some dude who would come and do it for us. He pumped 2 loads of "stuff" out of our sewer tank...let's just say yuck and leave it at that...However I did reflect upon the fact that of course this happened in the middle of January and of course our sewer was buried under about 3 feet of snow...why does it always happen that way? Murphy's law or something like that! You can see all of the snow that had to be pushed...for us to access the sewer. I hope it didn't kill my strawberries or my rhubarb! On to better things. Kaysha's birthday is a day before Peyton's birthday and we all met at blast off and had a blast. See if you can see a head in that! We had a fun time running around, playing with cousins,talking with each other, letting the kids burn up some pent up energy, and trying to beat mom in skyball. She is amazing! It's too bad that isn't a sport...I think she would be rich!
Sonnet and Peyton both loved the ball pit and running around in the little tubes.
It was really cool because we went on a Thursday night and no one was there...we basically had the run of the place. That was kind of cool because you didn't really have to worry where they were because we were the only ones in there. Peyton loved the rock walls and we were amazed at how quickly he could scale them. He went up and down about 10 times and tried all three levels. It was kind of funny though, because he was so light he kept coming down very slow once he got to the top! That made us laugh!

Sonnet is also a strong little thing. We are amazed with her arm strength. She held on the whole time down in this ring ride. She did it about 10 times too!

Dad was not to be outdone and he did a spider dance game! He was pretty good!

We then went back to Angie's and had pizza and cake with Kaysha...this was the best picture I could get of the birthday girl. She was flitting around all night and very excited about all of it! The next day was Peyton's birthday. He had to go to school. We took 1/2 of the day off and had his little party at school that day. Sonnet got to come over and we did a Darth Vader pinata that you just pull strings out of. He had a cute little class and they all got to pull out a string before Peyton found the magic one that made all of the candy fall out.

Then after school he finally to to open his presents. Angie always has these big fill-up balloons at her kids birthdays and Peyton has just loved them. We finally got him some...the only problem is that they are still full and still floating around my house...more than a month later! I guess I could just pop them..but he loves to look at them and play with them.

He is getting to an age where he actually slows a down a little and will read the cards because he can read now. But you can see the utter chaos he can make in about 30 seconds! He is at such a cute age.

After Christmas this year, we didn't really have anything to get him, so we just got him fun stuff that we hadn't really thought of. He did get lots of legos because he is really into them. I'm not sure what I think about them. There are tons of little parts. He builds it once and then I just have little parts all over my house...hmmm?

This was what Peyton thought he had to wear to his party...it was a Star Wars themed party again...we cracked up about this one. Andy says he looks like some character from a bad 80's movie (I can't remember which one!)

This was what the scene looked like before everyone arrived.

Once everyone got there, they had to put on Darth Vader masks instead of party hats. That made us laugh. See if you can guess who is who! We had a great night!

His request of Lasagna but he doesn't like hamburger so I did a chicken nugget lasagna..he seemed to like it as did Austin. Then we has Snicker's salad, veggies with ranch, apples with caramel apple dip and bottled root beer. Pop is getting in his birthday spankings...He needs them!

These are the styling "Top Gun" glasses that aunt Pam got him. He thought he was one cool dude in them.

The next picture shows him in his new cowboy boots...(his mom doesn't know what to think of them...but he loves them!). It also shows on his face the pure excitement of this gift that I think Grans and Pop gave him....a UFO that flies. It was the hit of the night. We were all flying it all over and had quite the laughs.

This is Peyton about to blow out candles on the Death Star (at least my feeble attempt with Andy's help in decorating!) We sure love this little boy and are so glad he came to our home. We can't believe he is 7 and yet with each passing year he just gets better and better. More smart, more cute, more creative, more witty, more fun, more challenging (but in a good way), more excited about life. I wish for him a life of MORE great experiences.
Not too bad of an attempt at the Death Star...but kind of a depressing cake! ha!

I should have said the 26th also. Little Sonnet has now been in our home for over a year. We can't believe this little girl has been with us so short of a time and it seems like she has always been here. She is a bright light in our lives and adds such a wonderful spirit and love to our home. What a sweet, cute, loving little girl. She just blesses our lives. Pray for the lawyers to get things figured out so we can get this all settled...it is taking FOREVER! But I know that good things come to those who are patient! :-) However, I do know now why they have all those lawyer jokes! Last year about three days after she came to us...Can you see any differences?

My Favorite Present...(Here you go Lataun)!

So every year, I get a lot of money to go to Barnes and Noble. I believe most people in my family think that it is an easy way out for a gift for me...however, little do they know that I love, love, love to go there and just peruse and get a stack of books. I joked with Andy that someday I may get to purchase all of the books that I have a hankering to get...however, I was really tempted when I went in there this year to get a Nook...but alas they have invented a color one which is so much cooler and so I will wait a year or two for the price to fall...any thoughts on Nooks and Kindles? I've read some disturbing things about how there is a new application for Iphones and Ipod Touch and Ipads that let you scan in the bar code of books you have and they will upload to your phone. Does that mean I could go into Barnes and Noble and do the same thing? I also read an internet article that talked about how children born in 2011 will not know what traditional newspapers, magazines, and books are...that was also a little disturbing...but I'm really seriously thinking about getting a Nook...I'm just afraid my friends (my books) might be a little mad! :-)

Here is the list for this year...There are some darker colored jackets on the books, so for anyone that is interested...here is the title list: Divine Signatures (Gerald Lund), Before Green Gables, Pathfinder, What the Dog Saw, Third World America, A Homemade Life, Bento Box in the Heartland, Committed, Freakonomics, The Pillars of Greek Wisdom, Inside of a Dog, The Cheesecake Cookbook, Fast Breads, Cake Pops, Le Cordon Bleu Dessert Techniques.

Hmmm...Kind of an interesting list...I pulled up my list from last year, so that I could compare how my interests of changed. I'm really addicted to nonfiction now and I don't read as much fiction (the only problem with that is that is takes me so much longer to read nonfiction) . I'm also so into cooking and my new love is to purchase any cool, interesting, exciting cookbook that I can find! It appears last year, I was very interested in fiction...funny how our interests change!

I still love a good fiction book but need some new ones after reading "The Hunger Games" series...anyone have any recommendations?

December In a Nut Shell

December came and went in a flash of busy, hectic, fun-filled days. It was a magical time because of how excited our kids were about everything (especially Peyton). They are at an age where everything about Christmas reminds you as a parent of your own special times growing up. To start out December Peyton had a dance recital at the high school. He does a great job and is so fun to watch. This is his little dancing group...that has really grown from last year. We love that there are five boys and five girls. They will be doing a really cute dance with their partners coming up in the spring. Peyton wasn't quite sure he wanted to dance with a "girl" but he has done a great job. We had lots of mail to send out in December...in fact, we spent the first part of December getting gifts and things ready. On one of the packages we sent, Peyton had decorated this package of Andy and I under the mistletoe. It made me smile and I had to get a picture. Definitely one of my favorite things about Christmas.

The tree marathon began the first week of December...with our kids so excited about getting their trees up. It is a good thing they were, because Andy and I have lost a little excitement about putting up "all" those trees. We are up to 14, however only 9 made it up this year (which was okay with us!) The new tree for the year was Sonnet's tree. It was fun to see how excited she was with her tree.

The kids trees are the only ones we add to each year, so it will be fun to see how each year her tree changes. One of my other favorite things is my dad's lights. I'm glad he got them all up. As you can see this was a very pretty night... The next event was the Christmas play. This is Sonnet with a little girl her age. They played for a little bit before it all began. The theme for the Christmas play this year was a cowboy theme which was great for Peyton...he loved it!

Some of the vaqueros waiting to perform. This picture below was so funny. A line was forming to see Santa and my kids ran up and cut in front of everyone. I'm training them so well aren't I! One of my proudest moments..(hmmm). These pictures were at Peyton's school party. Peyton has an amazing teacher this year who he just adores. She got them all such a wonderful gift. What a giving, caring, kind, and inspiring lady she is.

They also made Gingerbread houses. She told me she was going to teach them how to make them...which I thought was weird because we just plathered candy on when I was a kid. Much to my surprise and delight...these little houses just turned out great. They actually look like a gingerbread house with a little bit of thought. She just knows how to make things fun and educational at the same time. Peyton is lucky to have her!

We had some great snow before Christmas. As you can see I didn't get a very good picture of the sledders. But it was a wonderful Christmas weather. I do wish now that it would go away, but we liked it for Christmas. Peyton is sledding with a cousin and Uncle Jake took them out to do this. We loved having family up for Christmas. All of my siblings were home. That just made Christmas grand! (a little crowded and noisy at mom's but wonderful!)

Andy's birthday is Christmas Eve and we had a nice dinner and celebration at our home with Andy's dad. I loved this drawing that Peyton made in Andy's birthday card. As you can see he does love his dad, but he is frowning because he can't open presents yet! This made us smile! Andy turned 36 this year. We both wondered where the time has gone. This is him posing with his present opener helpers. I don't think he opened too many of his presents. This is Andy at my parent's house opening his gifts in a rush before we go to the "White Elephant" party at my grandpa's house.

This is one of my favorite pictures of Christmas. As you can see all of the kids are crowded around Holly who is pulling up the "Santa tracker" on the internet. This is why Christmas is so magical. These little ones were just enthralled with Santa getting closer to Idaho! I had to pull it up at my house when we got home! Just to check again where he was!

This was Grandpa Sanders' gift, but he gave it to "Rascaleono" as he calls my little boy. I would have loved to see Grandpa in this, but he got a kick out of Peyton wearing it! I guess we do what everyone else does on Christmas Eve by opening the Christmas P.J.s...Peyton and Sonnet finally got to give into that madness of not being able to open a present. I thought they looked so cute in their P.J.s

Off to bed for the longest night of a child's life. Peyton was so wired we had a hard time getting him to sleep. We left quite a haul out for Santa as you can see. Peyton also hid a special box of candy that only Santa and Peyton and his Dad would know where it was hidden. That was how Peyton would know if Santa was really real (yes he is already questioning...it never came up in my mind!) As you can see, Santa ate all that was left to him...and he took the box of candy that was hidden...one of the first things Peyton had to find out when he woke up.

Peyton loved everything and had to dump out, rip open, try, etc...every single thing that Santa left him. It was very cute! The old bird left quite a haul at our house. Some of the highlights included the race track for Peyton and the doll house for Sonnet.

He also left Sonnet a fropper (we are still not sure what it does)...the cute hat was courteousy of Grandpa Scott. She loved both.

One of my favorite pictures to take is my parent's tree....every year no matter how much we cut back it is still jam packed with presents! My family especially my parents are so generous. One of my favorite pictures of Christmas...notice the bow on Pam's bum! ha! We got a good laugh from that!

Peyton got a costume from Jake and Nancy's family. Of course he had to try it on. We rushed to open gifts so that Mom and Dad could get a dinner prepared for 30+ people. It was then a shift over to my grandpa's house for presents and dinner. Sometimes I wish we would just order in pizza and be able to enjoy the day.

The next picture at about 10:00 p.m that night is me opening birthday gifts...sometimes you just can't fit it all in...I think the look on my dad's face shows how busy that this day really was. I turned 37 this year and for once in my life I felt really old on my birthday...(I think it was because I was a catching a bug that I fought the rest of Christmas vacation!)

Cute, cute, cute...kids...This is their Christmas clothes outfits...that they wore the day after Christmas to church! There is another December birthday...right after Christmas...this cute little thing is my brother's daughter. She is a funny little particular thing. She is deathly afraid of Andy which is hilarious and makes us all laugh. She calls him guy and hides whenever he comes near. We joke and say she is a good judge of character. Playing hot potato at the party...
Then to end December we went over to Brove's house and did the traditional games, food, and frapee. This is Peyton drinking/eating frapee at 12:00 a.m.
As you can see Sonnet has had it. We are irresponsible parents and let our kids stay up to ring in the New Year...what a wonderful December we had..