Valentine.

 Here is Nora in her Valentine outfit for school! Sophie was a bit sad that the 6th graders didn't do anything this year, no passing out cards, no treats. They did sell carnations at the school for the kids to buy and have delivered, but she thought that was pretty lame. Miles had a hard time because he despises anything pink or purple and hearts. So... pretty much everything Valentine's related! Ha! He did enjoy the candy.

Our ward had an 80's Valentine dance. We dressed up as best we could without spending any money. I knew keeping my hair crimper would come in handy!

Valentine's Day

I love Valentine's Day! I think it's silly when people are anti-Valentine's day. It's not like I expect a lot -  we don't do gifts and rarely go out, but it's nice to have a day to celebrate the people you love a little more than usual. And besides, February needs a holiday! Our Valentine celebrations consisted of;

 a Valentine playgroup at my house

 pink play-doh

store bought Valentine's for class parties (I had other ideas but this is what the kids wanted)

  heart braided hair for Nora

 heart shaped pancakes and strawberries 

cards for Brian and I & pink roses for me

I told Brian I was going to buy some flowers when I went to Costco on Thursday because I needed a bit of color and lovely-ness to get me through this cold, white, looong winter. But when it came down to it I didn't buy any. I was already spending all our grocery $ for the week and couldn't make myself spend any more on flowers! Brian stopped and bought some on his way home from work on Friday so that was a fun surprise. Every day I close my eyes and smell them and pretend I'm somewhere nice and warm. If I was rich I think having fresh flowers in my home from December to March would be something I could splurge on (but probably still wouldn't)!

Valentine's Day

I didn't take many pictures of Valentine's Day. We did have pink heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and I fixed Nora's hair in a heart as she requested:

 

The kids all had parties at school and luckily they had finished their valentine's that weekend. They all had a great time at their parties. Brian was able to be home for most of the day as well, he taught his class and then came home.  Even though it was a difficult day we were glad to be together. He decided to organize our photos/videos on our computer and back them up on a hard drive and a website for me for Valentine's day. Yay! Our computer is about 7 years old and although it works well, it doesn't hold my 10's of thousands of pictures and still run smoothly! :) So he has spent a lot of time doing that, in fact he is still working on it! I think we have 70,000 pictures downloading to an external hard drive so it's a big job. And the next day he accidentally deleted ALL of our home videos without backing them up. Luckily his older brother helped him out (thanks Toph!) and it seriously took Brian almost the entire day to get them back, but he did. Phew!

Some good friends from church brought us a great dinner that night and we just spent the evening being together and making each other Valentine's - thanks to Nora - who made us all Valentine bags and wrote us each a note and then told us all to do the same. The girls spent some time using their new ice skates out on our driveway! I found some ice skates for $2.50 each at the thrift store and the girls were super excited to use them but the day I took them to the ice skating pond it was closed. Luckily the driveway works pretty well!

The night before Valentine's day we got heart attacked by the young women of our ward. It was fun and the kids were pretty excited to have hearts all over our front door! I think Valentine's Day is fun because it gives you an extra reason to make the people you love feel even more loved! And who doesn't like that?

A memorable Valentine's Day.

I saw this heart hairstyle on Pinterest and decided to give it a try on the girls. I remember one year (although I was in the 5th grade!) asking my mom to braid my hair in a heart on top of my head for Valentine's Day and I thought it was so cool! The girls loved their hairstyles.

Miles is doing a co-op pre-school with some friends so we had a little party at our house with them and their younger siblings. Two of girls were sick and couldn't make it. Darn it! The kids had fun playing and passing out their Valentine's and eating cupcakes.

We ended the night with something pretty darn exciting.... a PUPPY!! The kids have been wanting a dog for a long time and we've been telling them we'll get one when the time was right. I thought that meant when we had a house of our own, but our landlord allows pets and I randomly looked on craigslist at the pet section on Tuesday and saw this adorable Muggin (cross between a pug and a miniature pincsher) puppy that was for sale. I called Brian at work every couple of hours to check in and see what he thought. I wasn't sure I was ready for the big commitment of a puppy. It's not like I am bored and need something to do :) Then I thought of how badly I wanted a puppy when I was little, and how so many of my childhood memories involve the dogs we had (Mic, Chancy and Chewy!) So after Brian got home from work I went out to "look" at him. And once I saw him I couldn't leave without him.

Brian sent them on a little clue treasure hunt that ended in our room where I was holding the pup. They were pretty surprised and excited, except Nora claimed she knew it was going to be a dog. :) The people we bought him from were calling him Scooter, and it just seemed to fit so we kept it. And it saved us from having to let the kids all agree on a name, too!

Scooter and Wesley are quite a pair. Scooter loves to play with him and Wesley loves getting Scooter's toys and running in circles while Scooter chases him.
I think they are going to be great friends.