happy Friday!

 Happy Friday from these two goofs!  

photo from our cabin trip last weekend 

What are you doing this weekend?  Which day will you rest?  I'm hoping for a Saturday of planning house projects and a Sunday of worship and rest.  

Kelly

Family Valentine's Dinner Last Year

I didn't blog about this last year so I thought I'd just put it in here.  My parents hosted all of us for a family Valentine's dinner (and also offered nights of baby-sitting so the couples could go out later if we wanted!).  

Isn't that cute how my sister-in-law cut the beets into hearts? 

That girl is detailed with food I tell you.  She has more patience than I in that area and I love that she does these special things.  

Handsome fella

My parents provided meat and rolls and we all contributed red/Valentine's foods.  

cutie button

pretty heart cookies that my mom made

My mom knows how to throw a party and the boys (well, all of us really) had so much fun!

Wish I had gotten more people pictures, especially of my other nephew Aaron so we could see how they've all grown in a year.

Are you doing anything special for Valentine's Day this year?

Kelly

happy heart day

This sort of makes me feel like my kitchen is a fun, festive bakery that one would visit on vacation as opposed to just my normal everyday kitchen.  

Sometimes it's good to feel that way about your house.

I hope you have a very happy heart day!

And get to eat some chocolate.  :)

I don't know if I'll ever forget the day our PTA at school switched from the "death by chocolate" spread they annually put on (have you ever tried a brownie bite in a chocolate fountain?!) to a healthy yogurt bar without any warning.  

I'm planning to take my friend Janae's grandma's Mocha Angel Food Torte to our MOPS meeting today.

What are your plans for the day?

If you're feeling mopey, try brightening someone else's day in someway and hopefully you'll feel ten times better too!

Kelly

Valentine's Party this year

My mom, very sweetly, and very bravely in my opinion, offered to host an all day Valentine's Day party for her three grandsons last Tuesday.

It was a fun-filled day with lots of special touches.

Look at these adorable bags that each boy got with a little treat inside and to put all of their crafty projects of the day in to take home.

I also love the little cereal boxes wrapped in ribbon with red spoons attached. Ahh . . . breakfast at Nana's house.

My little Valentine with the cereal he chose. He is getting so big!

The boys were so excited to be together and to be at Nana's so they had a little impromptu dance party when we got there.

I love this picture of my Sweetie crafting with my son as she and I have done so many times through the years.

Mama's Valentine's lunch

Aren't the plates cute? My mom got them at Hobby Lobby. If you hurry they may still have some and on sale even! (Speaking of, has anyone found any great after Valentine's sales that I should hit up?)

Nana reading the boys a heart book

My sweet boy "icing" his own cupcake - love it!

happy chaos!

Thank you, Nana for such a special Valentine's party!

Kelly

Valentine's party

I can't believe I never blogged about this!

When I was teaching, Valentine's was my very favorite day of school.

The kids were so happy and excited, I had a fun low-key game that I played with them every year just on that day and there were sweet notes from the kids, not to mention a whole building full of sugar.

Last year since I wasn't teaching I wanted to do something fun on Valentine's Day so we had a little party at our house with a few of our friends.

There were treats for the babies

and sugar for the mamas

My sweet friend Erin bought this shirt before we knew if David was a boy or a girl and sent it to me the Valentine's before saying if the baby was a girl she could wear it with a cute denim skirt.

It was really fun to pull it out and put David in it a whole year later!

I love this picture of all of the kids listening to the book.

Here are all the kiddos!

One of my sweet Valentine's.

His Daddy's my other.

I just love this photo!

Mama and daughter

This little sweetheart is a one year old now!

We had a great time and are so happy we got to spend that day with our sweet friends!

We miss you guys so much!!

Kelly

and today was a different day

Yesterday was a play day.

For the last several months I've been choosing a day a month to just do projects and look at ideas that I've saved and do something with them.

These days have quickly turned into some of my favorite days!

Jenni commented that I sure got a lot done in one day yesterday.

Well, one reason for that is because I let everything be sort of "on hold". I don't do laundry or do much beyond what is absolutely necessary to keep our home going and I use the day to play.

It is only one day a month after all.

Well today was no longer a play day and after being out of town then having company and also hosting a dinner party plus continuing to work on our basement remodel I had quite a few things that needed doing but I was having a hard time mustering up excitement or motivation to do them.

I decided that perhaps if I took photos and did a blogpost it might help.

And it did.

So today . . .

I got dressed including shoes, hair and make-up (thanks to all of my flywashing from Flylady over the years). I also put on the apron to help with my motivation as well and it worked too.

I put band aids on heads just because it's fun to have a sticky band aid on your forehead.

I enjoyed looking at all of these (and yes they're still up, are yours?)

I tackled this

and helped this little guy get set up with these and "new paper"

and used about a zillion of these for both he and I

put milk cups back in the fridge

(this is one of those things I find myself getting tired of doing but hello, is it really a big deal? no)

tackled this

and ended up with this

(and then I did also put them away as well as another load later as well, yea!)

lit a candle because that always makes things feel more orderly and nice

plus David can say "candle" now and it's really cute and he liked looking at it away across the table while he colored

picked up that same band aid off the floor

(thankfully it was clean!)

washed a really yucky high chair tray

(this was admittedly a staged shot after I was done)

emptied my dishwasher

so I could start in on all these

and I didn't get the dishes completely done but my dishwasher was full and running and the rest could be left for the next load in my opinion

(have I ever shown you my mini size dishwasher before?)

Then I started these guys soaking!

Yuck!

and lit another candle that was totally an impulse buy (the candle, not the holder) at the grocery store the other night because I walked by and it smelled so good!

But votives were only 25 cents so why not, right?

and when I went to get the baking soda for soaking the drip pans I enjoyed my organized baking drawer which I had done a few weeks ago but which is still making me happy

It was a good day even if not as "fun" as yesterday.

So what did you do today?

Kelly

what we've been up to today

Okay before we actually talk about today, we should talk about STOVES!

We went out of town after we had nine stoves and I wasn't getting my update e-mails about the new stoves.

It was SOO much fun to learn that we purchased THIRTEEN stoves!!!

EXCITING, EXCITING stuff!!!

The Adventure Project *exceeded* their goal of 1000 stoves, of $20,000.

That's a lot and it's greatness!!

Here's a fun blogpost about it.

So today was a nice day around here.

We did a bunch of stuff.

I say "we" because I definitely had a little helper.

I hung up my garlands from last year in my new house instead of my old apartment which was lots of fun.

We went to music class and when we were done giant snowflakes were swirling outside the big windows.

I made a pom pom garland inspired by this.

She used clear thread and I used bakers twine instead.

It was quite hard to thread into my needle and then the stringing of them was pretty hard too but I do think it's fun.

I had some good prayer time inspired by this.

(And she had really good news today by the way.)

David colored

I switched out my lamp for a more Valentine's-y feel.

inspired by hers

David played with his school bus and clapped along with the music.

I love how this photo captures that.

He played drums a lot (except at music class where he didn't want to touch them for some reason) and when I was out in my storage area

(which right now is a way bigger mess than that)

getting Valentine's decor, David found the pumpkin and wanted to bring it in.

We made a toy car run inspired by this.

I'd like to make her version sometime but I need to remember to save my paper towel tubes as I didn't want to cut this long one since it is it's own kind of fun.

Also, this is real life showing you the foam on top of the mattress with no sheets on the bed.

Sometimes beds are just like that, right?

I painted trim (and managed to take a picture of myself doing it since I was the only person at home of camera wielding age at the time).

So there you have it, a very busy day indeed but quite enjoyable.

And just because I couldn't resist, one photo from yesterday to leave you with . . .

I love that boy!

Kelly