Catching Up

Here are the final products of our Valentines. It was more work than just buying a box of character valentines, but I had more fun with them. I hope the kids did, too.

(Below) Ethan's Valentine. You can't see it with the glare, but in the middle of the heart it says "Eye" to make the phrase say: "I Only Have Eye For You!" Pretty clever, if I do say so myself (he, he)

Below: Parker's was fun! It's an alien (just in case you weren't sure!) and inside we wrote something like "Happy V-alien-tine's Day!"

Kate's valentine was a *labor* of love. It took FOR.EVER. to cut out all those butterfly shapes, but they turned out so stinkin' cute.

I ended up cutting 26 or 27 butterflies. And gluing 52 or 54 eyes. Fun, but glad it's over.

While we were making valentines, the kids were playing with dominoes. Not the game, but making the tumbling tracks. It was really noisy there, for awhile. Here they are at work.

Below: Parker made a heart shape out of dominoes, AND his hand.

On to other happenings:

My parents came over on Friday during the Valentine's Day weekend. They stayed at the Holiday Inn here in town which has a swimming pool. So of course, we had to take full advantage of *that* amenity!! We went out to dinner after swimming to our favorite Mexican restaurant in Cheney: El Rodeo. Soooooo yummy! All the kids did really good with their food. Kate is now known as "chip girl". That's pretty much all she ate. She ordered a taco (that came with rice and beans) but even a taco is basically a chip; it just has stuff in it! Parker ate his plate CLEAN! He's such a big boy. Ethan ordered a grilled cheese sandwich with french fries and ate almost the whole thing. I was worried that he wouldn't really eat, but he did so good. Lindsey did good too, even though the beans aren't her favorite.

The next morning, we went over to the hotel, and partook of another amenity: free continental breakfast. This is by far one of the best breakfasts around!! Steve's co-workers even say so. You have your choice of cereal, biscuits and gravy, sausage patties, bagels, muffins, omelettes, cinnamon rolls, fruit, toast, hot chocolate, milk, o.j. cranberry juice, apple juice. That's a lot of food!!! For FREE!!! All you can eat!!!! It was really yummy. After breakfast, the kids had a Primary Activity. We got back together after lunch and naps, to go swimming again. Yay!! Ethan even got in the hot tub. He hates the water, so this was very exciting. After swimming and cleaning up, the adults went out to eat at a place in Airway Heights (next town over) called The Rusty Moose. Weird name, I know. But it was S.O.O.O.O. G.O.O.D. Seriously. Really yummy! For our appetizer, we had mozzarella sticks with ranch and {get this!!} blackberry sauce. Oh. My. Goodness. I could've had that for dinner and been happy. The blackberry sauce was so good with the mozz. sticks. Sounds kinda weird, but the mozz. sticks weren't deep fried like most places. The were made out of a pastry-like bread. I might have to drag Steve back there just for those. My mouth is watering right now. Especially since I just had Mac & Cheese for dinner.

So the whole point of that was to say that Lindsey babysat AND got paid!! First time EVER!! She got $8. So today, she went and got herself a new toy. A monkey, of course. Her favorite animal :D

It's a Beenie Baby. Actually a Beenie Boo. I guess this kind means it has the big buggy eyes. The monkey's name is "Coconut". Welcome to the family.