You make my heart glow...

I would like to say that we try to make a big deal out of Valentine's Day in our house, but really we just make a lot of work for ourselves. For some crazy reason I have the kids give out homemade valentine's. Here is a picture of Reid with his. Notice the glowstick that we used to avoid candy, and to help perpetuate business at Dollar Tree that will eventually fill our landfills. Now notice that most of the work on these he wasn't able to do. Since he was fighting through an ear infection I was pushing it to get him to sign his name on all 30 of them. Writing your name 30 times when you are a 5 year old boy is torture. The best moment came when he gave a valentine to his sweetie...
Part of the celebration, of course, had to include the hokey pokey.
The prep work for Emiline was more labor intensive because I had signed up for cookies for the party. Here is the part where I think I'm messed up in the head: I could have bought cookies, or made something easy like rice crispy treats, but I saw this crazy idea on bakerella's blog and I couldn't let it go. They are oreo truffles dipped in chocolate and shaped like hershey's kisses. If you want to see what they are supposed to look like hers are much better.

Thank goodness Emiline had a friend over Thursday afternoon to help put these together, and thank goodness she only had to make 22.
I am truly messed up in the head because Thursday night I was looking for pinking shears to give the envelopes cute edges. I'm glad I threw in the towel with that one.

Groundhog Day

So I was disappointed to see that we are going to get "six more weeks of winter." I guess I can look forward to more of this:and this:

I am hoping for a springlike 40 degrees somewhere in the near future.

Winter Storm #2

Today we are taking a day off from school and work with another winter storm. During the last storm we were able to keep two family traditions going. The first was skating on an actual frozen lake. I won't say where we were, but I can assure you there was very little risk involved. There were only two problems. The first was that it was bone chilling cold outside. I guess that is necessary if you are going to skate on a lake. The second was that we figured out we are not very good skaters. We were better off when we ditched the skates and keep our boots on. I sure am glad I dug the dusty duffel bag of skates out of my parents' basement and cleaned the skates off. I don't think they had been used since I was 11.



The second tradition is going sledding at Douglass Park at midnight. Okay, so we may have only been there from 9-10, but when you don't wear a watch it is "midnight". The sledding was fast and the kids were fearless. I came home with a tear in a very nice pair of jeans from trying to go down the hill on a piece of broken plastic Robin found laying around. It was a small price to pay.

School Pictures

Since we are admittedly terrible about sharing the kids' school pictures with our relatives, I at least wanted to give everyone a peek at them. Our expectations for these pictures are very low: #1 eyes open, and #2 smile with teeth.
Below is my second grade school picture to scare all of you who think we look alike. Maybe I shouldn't have smiled with teeth.

Skating

To celebrate the first day of Christmas vacation and the unusually warm weather we took in some skating downtown. If any of you go I want to warn you that the guy handing out skates is a grinch. If you have your own skates avoid him.

Emiline and Reid were happy with their skills. It's all fun and games until you fall down. Reid didn't seem to mind his falls, but after Emiline fell once she was ready to go. She thought it looked like she had "an accident." I told her if that is what was happening then we were in trouble because half the skaters down there had pants that had gotten wet. Maybe we really should avoid those puddles on the rink.

The kids want me to add that Emiline went really fast at the end, and it was Reid's first time on real skates. He wants you to know he went fast too.

Christmas Violin Recital

Emiline had her Christmas violin recital last Thursday. She played Allegro perfectly while her piano accompanist lacked in the skills department. Next time we will have to practice more. We'll just say that some chords didn't come out as they were intended to.


She finished off with a duet of Jingle Bells with again, another lousy accompanist. If anyone has a request for a personal recital we are taking calls at our leisure.

The Holiday Pressure

This week I caved on two things. Number one is a shelf elf. The kids kept looking around hoping an elf would magically appear on the bookcase. Sometimes they were looking a little too intently. It is my suspicion that this is a direct correlation to how much they were tormented at school that day because everyone else has a shelf elf. I didn't seem too optimistic.

Then on the way up the steps after karate the kids saw a package with their name on it from S.C. in North Pole Village. I guess when the head elf sends one of his little guys to your house for December you have to let him stay so I caved.


Now Zipper, which is the name the kids gave him, has come to live with us for a few weeks. The funny thing is they will sit and talk to him. Some of the things are whispered like a secret, but if he has taking his daily perch in a place out of reach they decide to yell at him. I have a feeling he will be finding some lower shelves to sit on.

The second thing I caved on was outdoor Christmas lights. I hadn't put them up because it's been extremely cold every day. The kids wanted them desperately and Emiline cried because our house wasn't in the spirit of Christmas. Even thought it was warm out today I still cut corners. Notice I stayed away from the high places.