Valentine Parties

I really enjoyed joining Lincoln's class for their Valentine party. I haven't spent a whole lot of time at his school, but I am so impressed with his teachers and how well they work with the 4 year olds. Look at them all sitting in a circle. Look how many yummy treats they have in front of them.

I was astounded at how many treats came home with Jackson - I happened to send some little valentine treats to Mother's Day Out because he wanted to have some like his brother did, but he came home with a much bigger and fancier stash then Lincoln did! Crazy.

Fun day!

Happy Birthday Jackson!

We had all of our cousins over today for Jackson's Indiana Jones party. We had a fun treasure hunt where each cousin had a special ability and a task to complete to earn a piece of a puzzle as they followed a treasure map through the house.

Jackson's only request for this birthday - no matter how many different times and in different ways I could ask - was that his cake be orange.

Somehow, my kids are more attached to a specific color than to any other character or thing. It truly makes me laugh... I can't imagine that coming from me--who wanted all white food at my (excuse me) OUR wedding.

Thanks to all of the family for coming. We had a great celebration!

Happy birthday baby (excuse me) BIG boy.

Give Me Some Sugar Baby

My neighbor friend told me that she needed to be accountable to someone and told me she was going off of sweets. I had this urge to say I'd do it with her. I had this urge not to. I kept going back and forth, wondering if I could do it. I finally agreed.

This week I've failed miserably. I've decided I will start with renewed strength. Next week.

Here's how the week has gone since I made the agreement...
Day 1: church formal dinner activity, including wedding cake
Day 2: had friends over for dinner, who brought dessert
Day 3: my dad's birthday party, best cake in the universe served there
Day 4: might have snuck in a valentine chocolate
Day 5: totally unexpected call came offering to watch my boys, make valentine's for us with them, cook us dinner and help me put them to bed (WOW! - has this happened to you? THANKS TOSHA), this dinner included brownies
Day 6: (TODAY) relief society fireside followed by possible impromptu girl's night out for dessert
Day 7: (TOMORROW) valentine's parties at the kid's schools - guess what will be coming home
Day 8: Jackson's birthday party, cake anyone?

So, yeah. Next week.

So the sweets have been a real problem - though I've been very conscious of it and have had smaller pieces - does that help? What I did RIGHT this week was to finally join the gym. I am very excited about that.

Wish me luck.

And don't bring me any more cake, for heaven's sake.

[Bad hail pun here]

I have never seen anything like today.

I was impressed enough to make a video when it was doing this:




And then wowed when it did this:




But when this happened I did not take time to make a video. I RAN FOR COVER and held my boys close. It was CRAZY loud and CRAZY scary. It probably only took two minutes to make the pile you see in the picture. It sounded like a train was driving over our roof.