Valentine's Day

This past Friday was Valentine's day for the kiddos. It's such a hallmark holiday but it's fun to remember the ones we love in a special way. The day before (Thursday) the kiddos and I put together cards for Courtney so that in the morning they would be able to surprise her. We laid out the plan earlier in the week. We would do cards at bed time and I would run out to get flowers and chocolate covered strawberries for the morning. We thought Friday would be perfect for the surprise since we weren't sure whether the big kids would be with their dad or with us.

Well, it worked. she was very surprised. she was up pretty late coding and finishing up some stuff for the end of the week. Sydney went in to wake her up so that she could have her hair brushed but she said, "mom, brush it out in the living room". jake jumped out and yelled surprise!!! She was very surprised and enjoyed the cards dark chocolate strawberries and flowers (at the kid's request, blue, yellow and red flowers, none with the fake looking dye).

The kids had their party starting at 1:50. Sydney had no trouble finding cards she liked and was so ready for the party days in advance. She had her box decorated and cards ready and at school well before the party. Jake wasn't as industrious and didn't really have his stuff there until the day of the party. Courtney found some great cards for the kids in his class that were very boyish. They were cutout football goals. They were pretty cool. I told him to make sure that he got one too because when the class was playing with them he was going to want to do the same.

At Sydney's party they had ice cream with sprinkles. I got there just in time to have some with her. She is really good friends with Sasha this year and we always find something to talk about. They showed me their mud pies and offered to let me have a taste. They are studying soils and were doing an experiment to see how quickly the mud drys. I passed on that, but did have some of their ice cream. Sydney decided she put too many sprinkles on it. I wasn't as concerned about the number of sprinkles so it suited me just fine. By then it was time to head down to Jake's classroom. The girls tried to tell me i was their maid and wanted me to throw there trash away. ...such is the life of a papa. :)

After that Courtney and I swapped classes. When I got to Jake's they were just finishing up on their snack. Sugar cookies with icing. Perfect for any party. The party's typically follow the same format. Snack, craft or talk/visiting time, and game. In this case we also had the valentine's to open but we ran out of time with the games. He was excited about getting home and loading up his nerf guns. He's got some impressive ones too. He can take you out from over 1000 yards with the laser sight. ha!

He's quite the boy. I should mention that his valentine's box was awesome. Courtney decorated it with pink and red wrapping paper. she cut out his name and pasted each letter to the box. and to make it more boy-ish she added some hearts with skulls!! I love it. She is so wonderful!!

The big kids went to their dad's that night and the bigger kids (Courtney and I) went to a mardi gras party in the neighborhood. It's such a good group of people. All our kids go to school together and have for the past few years. Kiley had her fun too. she had a new sitter that she quickly had eating from the palm of her hand. she's such a cutie pie.

I'll have to dig up some pictures to post. :)