Valentine's 2011

Nothing wrong with being a little late -- 11 days later, I'm still feelin' the love.  :)  

 I decided to subject my children to a photo shoot since they were home from school for 2 snow days the week before (and 2 more the next week, along w/ 2 teacher work days - they only went to school on Monday last week!).  So here you have it - my Valentines:

 K-lady is the such a great big sister.  When Baby A burned her hand on a hot stove burner last week, she cried and cried for "K-bug." It was quite heartbreaking, but made me realize what a sweet little momma she is to Baby A.  She helps me constantly with a thousand little things.  She's very sensitive to the emotional state of others and works hard to maintain peace.  Her dearest dream is to have her own room, and she's all for saving money so we can buy a house and she can have her own little haven where little hands cannot destroy Barbie accessories. :)  She isn't really into playing with the Barbies, but she LOVES to 'remodel' the doll house - she says, "Will you come and makeover the Barbie house?  It'll be like those shows on TV when they change where the furniture is and make it all beautiful and nice at the end."  :)  We haven't had HGTV for years, but apparently it made an impression on her!  Girl after my own heart!  She hates it when I listen to talk radio in the car because all the negative news freaks her out.  She tries to be tough and grown up, but she's pretty tender under her little grown-up-guise.  This morning I heard her telling J-boy, "You know, there's a song that says girls just wanna have fun.  And it's true - girls really do just wanna have fun."

 This little man has the craziest sense of fashion, and he's quite passionate about it.  He is a class clown and loves to make people laugh - he's got some awesome dance moves/air guitar skills, as well as hilarious facial expressions.  He has a terrible whine, but if I can slow down the situation enough to actually listen to him (if I can get him to pitch his voice 4 octaves lower so it's possible to listen to him) he's easy to calm down -- is that a middle child thing - trying to be heard and understood in the middle of the mayhem??  He loves Star Wars right now, thanks to bits of exposure from cousins and friends.  The other day he looked at me with an amazed expression and said, "Mom!  Our car is a toyota!  TOY YODA!!"  I think our van just got quite a bit cooler in his eyes.  He is starting karate this week - he told me he was thinking about gymnastics (it kills him to watch K-lady jump on those trampolines and not get a turn), but he decided it was better to "learn to karate-chop the bad guys, and karate-kick them so I can get the bad guys with my karate kicks."  My little defender has his priorities in line.  :)

 This isn't a great pictures of this monkey, but it's one of 2 that I got of her before she was done. :)  She is such a fun little buddy!  She is very independent (she helps herself to yogurt, movies, diaper changes....  sometimes independence is overrated....).  We tried to potty train her during that 4-days-at-home stretch, but she had a minor tragedy while dressed as minnie mouse -- she decided she wanted to go by herself w/o help and w/o the little seat (since she's so independent), but the dress was a little too poufy, and she lost her balance and slipped right into the toilet and couldn't get out.  So now she's a little freaked out about the toilet and I've missed my magic window.  No big deal - I'm sure another one will come along (I'm such a lazy potty trainer!).  She loves to twirl and sing and tromp through the snow in her boots.  A few weeks ago she and J-boy were playing some sort of pretend game, and she was bossing him around -- "Hey, friend!  Come on!!"  And when he didn't come right away she tried the threatening-count: "One...Three...Two..."  :) She's been having nap-time-bed-time issues since discovering that her monkey skills are sufficient to get her in-to-and-out-of bed.  Bleh.  Some nights she goes down like a dream, and others it's kicking and screaming.  I still baby her a ton - she's NOT AT ALL a baby anymore (which makes me very sad), but I still carry her around and even spoon-feed her occasionally (anything to get her to EAT!).

 Those pictures to the left were the real purpose of the photo-shoot -- a little internet-inspired Valentine's goodness.  The kids were not excited AT ALL at the prospect of homemade Valentine's, but once we started putting tootsie pops into the pictures they decided they were cool after all. :)






Joseph bought each of his 3 girls tulips (J-boy got candy from daddy) - they were beautiful!  I loved the way they caught the morning sun.  And now we have some bulbs that will make next Spring beautiful, too (I hope...  if I don't kill them like I kill all plants I touch).  :)

It was a busy but good day - we had our traditional candlelit family dinner prepared by Joseph and I (I love cooking w/ him - I'm afraid I often think of cooking as a chore, but when we do it together it's so fun).  I made the mistake of putting the fruit & chocolate fondue out with the dinner, and that was all Baby A ate. :)  But we had a grand time.

Joseph wasn't around for our snow-day-photo-shoot, so I don't have a cute picture of him, but he really is the best Valentine of all.  He is so good and so good to us.  We have had our ups and downs, just like everyone, but sticking it out and working through (or sometimes, it seems, just enduring) the problems is so worth it.  He is a wonderful husband, and a great father.  I found my old box of love letters from when we were dating - gave me a nice little trip down memory lane, remembering all that twitterpation. But I love what we have now even better.  

That's Baby A's first Valentine's Day up there - don't blink, right??