VaLEnTine's

So many ways to say I love you...
These are the boxes we made for our preschool party. This was the Valentine Makinzie made for Ty and me.

These are the Valentine's for Makinzie's class.

Having a snow week before Valentine's Day was very beneficial to Makinzie's Valentine making...she got very creative. I had to take a side picture because so many needed the full 3-D effect... This is the set we sent to family and friends.

This is the Valentine we ate for breakfast...

This is the one Addellyn made...And I didn't get a picture of the one Coleson made before he cut it into teeny-tiny shreds. (He really likes to cut.)

The reason time stood still...

What happens when it snows like this? No school for a week...but for some reason the hospital still stayed open and Ty had to work all week?!?

We loved having Kinzie home for the week and playing in the snow!

January in all of its randomness...

Look who is ready for church early. (just don't look too closely)

The kids went to a very fun Bollywood party and were very excited about their new costumes. (I love this mother "rooster" pic of Nea, so appropriate.) Makinzie had art displayed at the local college art museum.

Ty had time off during New Year's week and worked hard in the garage. Now we have a beautiful window bench AND a bench for our table plus some newly painted red chairs...Once all 4 chairs are painted and the cushion for our bench is finished, I will take some pictures of the finished projects. Ty is awesome!

One night we splurged and let everyone pick their "favorite" ice cream topping and then bought a giant bucket of ice cream for our Family Home Evening treat! They were VERY happy!

Our NEW YEAR's eve PaRaDe!

Master-mind-Makinzie came up with the GREAT idea to have a very lOUd parade New Year's EVE, shouting HAPPY NEW YEAR and blowing pretend trumpets as they marched around and around our circle in the "falling snow"...

Dark, right? Just don't tell them that is was only 6:45...

Christmas Day, 2009

The craziest thing about our morning was that we had to WAKE UP the kids so they could see their daddy and peek at what Santa had brought before daddy left for work...I don't think they were too upset about it once they saw the glow coming from downstairs and smelt the cinnamon pull-aparts cooking in the oven.

And then we waited, and waited, and waited for Daddy to come home so that we could start on the gifts under the tree.

But, the waiting was well worth it.

The gift wrapping was the BEST, as usual!

The boxes to our necklaces made perfect crowns...

The Dinosaurs were a crowd favorite...

And a Christmas Feast! The traditional crab, asparagus, sweet potatoe wedges, homemade foccacia bread, and strawberry pretzle jello (that didn't quite work out, next time I may need to leave a new recipe for another time, oh well!)

The following Monday we had a special FHE about the "Greatest Gift of All," the last gift under our tree and we read about the Christmas Animals so that we could each remeber the reason Christ came to this earth and recognize that we have each been given our own special gifts and talents which we need to use to help others while we live our lives here...

We had another yummy feast: pesto linguine with shrimp, grape tomatoes, green onion, sweet peppers, spinach, pine nuts and portabellomushrooms, with our leftover foccacia bread and more yummy clementines. I wish I had gotten my camera out and taken a picture of the pasta, it was so pretty and full of Christmas color...It was another special night for our little family. We are so grateful for the Joy and Love that illuminated our lives during this Christmas time!

Christmas Eve.

All dressed up for Christmas Eve. And yes, the one in the middle who looks least dressed up (because his button up shirt turned out to be a few sizes too small) is also the one who could not stop laughing and making hilarious faces...the little ham!

So we got a good picture of the other two alone...

We went to be with friends from church for dinner, it was very yummy and so great to be surrounded by good people...We left a little early to come home and spend some time remembering why we celebrate Christmas in the first place.

We read our favorite Christmas book (created by our favorite Nana). We acted out the nativity as we read the story and sang several Christmas carols together.

We sang and blew out candles on the yummy angel food cake with fresh strawberries on top. Then they each opened one present...guess what it was?!?

I have to admit, these little ones made our Christmas Eve WONDERFUL this year! They were so happy and sweet and excited to sing and celebrate the birth of Jesus. It was nice to be together, just the 5 of us for a few hours of remembering why life is so important and why our Savior was born and gave us our greatest gift, the chance for eternal life...We know He lives and is our Brother, Friend and Redeemer.