My Valentines!

Valentine's Day... fun, cheesy... a neat excuse to go overboard with hearts!

Cory picked up some stuffed animals and balloons which we decorated the table with for breakfast. The kids were thrilled (well, one of them, Kirstin and Connor could care less).

Here's Connor contemplating a bag of chocolates Cory picked up for me... Cory gave me a dozen roses. He gave them to me on Friday (the 13th) because, apparently, the flower store isn't open on Saturdays. Huh! You'd think they would make an exception for Valentine's Day! He said "Can I give you your Valentine's gift early?" and I said "Why, is it a puppy and you can't leave it in the van?" Close... roses would have died too!

Pretty, eh?

And, because it's a fun holiday for kids too, here is my early morning attempt to go "Martha" on this family! I made heart shaped pancakes. This is the second time my children have had pancakes in my house. I do not cook pancakes. Not sure why, I just don't. Anyway, I only burned the first two, the next 4 turned out really well, after I'd trimmed them with scissors. (I have to remember to make a note in my cookbook that this recipe only makes 6 pancakes)

And lunch... peanut butter and jam. Okay, there isn't really any good way to make whole wheat bread look exciting, but I gave it a whirl. I remember when we used to come home from school for lunch on Valentine's Day or St. Patrick's Day and my Mom would serve heart shaped, or shamrock shaped, sandwiches. They always tasted a little better that way.

Goofy, I know... but it sticks in my memory! :)

And a cute story... cause my kids crack me up.

Alex took it upon himself to name each of our new stuffed animals. Kirstin's pony is "Princess Dash", Connor's lion is "Roary", Alex's tiger is "Stripey". I bought Cory a stuffed dog puppet... strictly because we thought it was cute and it made my kids laugh and say "again, again" (yeah, we're long past the romantic gifts and mementos - now if it's funny, go for it!) He's up in the first photo holding the Chocolate Orange, Cory's favourite. When you open and close the puppet's mouth, he sings the lines to that song...

"Why do birds suddenly appear,

Every time you are near?

Just like me, they long to be

Close to you!"

... and so on... Later that evening Alex was "introducing" the stuffed animals he'd named to Cory. Cory said "What's my dog's name?" And Alex said "he already has a name. He tells you himself"

You know how sometimes you hear a song over and over and you're convinced that you know the lyrics, but when you finally find out what they really are, you're way off and you're embarassed for every time you've ever sang them out loud in public?

Cory's dog's name is "Basil Jibee" according to my 4 year old. Works for us! :)

My kids are hitting new milestones daily!

We're very excited with her new ability to crawl... it's sooo cute! She can also pull herself up to standing if I sit in front of her and hold my hands out for her. She hasn't quite mastered furniture yet.

I think that I find the crawling stage so endearing because Alex only crawled for two weeks. He used to roll around the house to get where he wanted and then he went from crawling to walking so fast, we kind of missed it. Connor was a champion crawler, crawling for three months before he decided to take his first steps and I just adored it. Kirstin is about the same age as him, so maybe we'll get a couple of months out of her, too. I guess we'll see what happens.

Connor - on his second birthday. He has mastered the art of, well... tooting his own horn, I guess. He's talking up a storm, and while it's still pretty unintelligible, he has a huge vocabulary now and can get his point across quite well! :)

Alex can print all of his letters. Here's a Valentine he made for me today. It says "Happy Valentines Day". I figure that he'll learn spacing and stuff when he gets to Kindergarten. I'm just tickled that he can print letters.

And drawing!!! Just a few short weeks ago Alex was still a scribbler. Suddenly, he can colour (almost in the lines) and draw picture after picture after picture. This one is a boy and a Mama in a house eating caeser salad and ice cream cones at the table.

And, for your viewing pleasure... here's another one. And, yes, I do know I sing off-key... blame the the Martin gene. I'm okay with it, I have other talents!