Happy Valentines Day!

The kids woke up to heart pancakes, pink milk, and chocolate for breakfast!

 After church we started our Valentines Day Celebration!

Heart Stacking:

How many conversation hearts can you stack? 

Even Brooklyn can do it!

 A lot harder than it looks!

 

 Austin had the top score of 25 hearts!

Hug Hug Kiss:   

Played just like Duck Duck Goose except with the words Hug Hug Kiss. The kids really enjoyed teaching Brooklyn how to play this game!

 

Picture Time:



Valentine Cookies:

 

Love Letters:

 Everyone wrote a nice note to each member of the family.

 Then we shared them with each other.
Here are the ones Austin and Mikayla wrote:
To Dad from Austin: I love you. Your fun, sweet, and kind. I'm glad your in my family.
To Dad From Mikayla: I love you because you take care of me.
To Mom from Austin: Your really fun, kind, as sweet as candy. I'm glad I have a good mom.
To Mom from Mikayla: You are Nice! kind! fun! awesome! good! My BFF!
To Kayla from Austin: Your kind, fun, and sweet. I love you. Have a wonderful valentines.
To Austin From Mikayla: Thank you for playing Minecraft with me. You are fun!
To Brooklyn from Austin: I'm glad your in my family. Your funny and as sweet as a piece of candy.
To Brooklyn from Mikayla: Glad that you get to play valentine games with us!
To Katelyn from Austin: I love you. Your very cute. You make my life sparkle.
To Katelyn from Mikayla: I'm glad that you were born to our family.

Deliver Cookies:



 We made a couple cookie plates with our heart cookies and delivered them to a couple of our favorite neighbors. It was great weather outside and we ran into half the neighborhood on our walk!

Heart Hopscotch:



Valentines Dinner:

We even had some special guests join us for dinner

Stealing Kisses:

For this game, everyone sits in a circle and a Hershey kiss is put in the middle. One person leaves the room and one of the remaining players takes the kiss and holds it in his hands in his lap. The other person comes back into the room and asks a sitting player "Did you steal my kiss?" He/she gets 2-3 tries (depending on size of group) to find who has the Hershey kiss and then gets to eat it if he/she succeeds.

Who Do You Love:

For this game everyone sits in a chair in a circle except one person in the middle. That person chooses to ask a player "Who Do You Love?" to which that person responds with something like "I love people who are wearing red" or "I love people who love to play soccer" etc....and if the statement is true about you then you must get up and find an empty seat from someone else that got up. Whoever does not get a seat then becomes the person in the middle.

Valentines Bingo and Dessert:

The kids loved playing all the fun games and it was a great family day!

My super sweet valentine! I love you so much!!

Bachelorette Day

 2 weeks before Kristi's wedding we got together for a day of fun!

 Our first stop was at the Tulsa Glass Blowing School.

We got the choice to make a flower or a paper weight.

 First our instructor showed us how to do it.

 Putting the glass mold into the fire.

 Using the table to start the molding process

 Dipping the glass into the colors you chose to use

 Going back into the fire

 Adding in more color

 Molding of the paper weight

 Molding of the flower

 Some final shaping

 Creating the stem

 Final squeeze to separate the glass from the rod

 Not as easy as it looks to make. Good thing we had help so our finished product actually looked like what it was suppose to be.

Using fire to soften the cut edges.

 Kristi demonstrating a flower and paper weight since ours wouldn't be ready for a couple days.

It was a great activity and we had a lot of fun doing it!

 Next up was dinner at The Melting Pot. None of us had ever been there so it was a new experience. We did cheese fondue, salad, and chocolate fondue. It was all delicious!!

 We finished the evening with bowling at Andy B's.

Kelsey reserved the VIP bowling lanes for us to bowl on. 

It was different getting to bowl without my kids. I actually bowled. My score was not anything to brag about but it was fun. On the 3rd game we decided to bowl left handed. That was interesting. If anyone around us looked at our projected scores (aka gutter balls) they probably wondered what we were doing on the VIP lanes. It was a great day celebrating with the Bride To Be!

January

The new year always starts with a special person's birthday. Austin and I took Craig to see Star Wars at the AMC theater. Great movie!

We got a surprise last minute visit from the kid's cousins who stopped by for a couple days on their way from Utah to Georgia. They also enjoy spending time together! 

Finally got around to starting Katelyn on baby ceral this month. This was her first feeding.

It is always tricky at first but she does pretty good and seems to enjoy it.

 We hosted a Bridal Brunch for Kristi who is getting married in February.

On the menu: Waffle bar, juice, muffins, parfaits, mini-quiche, fruit kabobs and Crispy Crème donut holes. It was all delicious!

Brooklyn has figured out how to pedal her tricycle. She is growing up so fast and I love having her at home with me during the day. She has such a sweet temperament.

Her vocabulary has taken off the last couple months and she is saying all kinds of words and phrases. I love listening to her talk with her high pitch voice and words which aren't always pronounced perfectly. A couple of my favorites are "peeeees" (please) and "wuv you" (love you) and "wa wa's house" (grandma's house).

Her favorite pajamas are Batman ones.

Her favorite shoes are her black boots.

And when I ask her "what do you want to do today?" she will reply "wa wa's house?"

Mikayla lost a tooth on one of the nights I was working. She lost one last month too on a night I was working. Hopefully I will be home the next time she loses a tooth.

Craig and Austin went to see Marvel Universe Live together along with some friends of ours.



Abby looking good with her new haircut.

She seems to have adjusted well since Brady went to Heaven. She is more spoiled now and spends a lot more time inside with full access to the house.

All smiles after waking up from a long Sunday afternoon nap.

Austin went to his first Hockey game with his friend Ryan.

And the next day had fun playing his own game of hockey in the garage.

Katelyn turned 5 months old this month. She is full of smiles, coos, and laughs. She is good natured and happy almost all the time. She rolls all over the place and is reaching, grabbing, and holding toys. She is getting more into a routine with a short morning nap, long afternoon nap, and short evening nap. But she is still very flexible with our crazy schedules. Just that way you have to be as kid #4!

 We had some wonderful warm weather into the 60's the last few days of January so we spent some time outside at the park and went on a family bike ride on Saturday. We did a 5 mile bike ride which was a first for Mikayla and she did great. 

 Brooklyn was happy riding in the bike stroller with Kambria.

It is always a lot of work getting everyone ready, snacks packed, bikes checked, tires aired up, loading bikes and strollers up in the truck etc.....but as soon as we finally start riding down the pathfinder it is so peaceful, and relaxing, and fun! And it is always worth all the effort!