Valentine's Day 2024

I made plans on Valentine's Day since Jeremy had the day off. They were kind of surprise plans for him and the kids helped me out.

At the beginning of the day, I put "10 Things I Love About You" notes around for all the family members. I put them in places they would see them (sticking out of backpacks or scripture bags, sitting on Jeremy's wallet). Since Jeremy saw Nichole that day, he brought her my note and brought her a treat and Valentine. 

The "10 Things I Love About You" notes were printables from Jordan Page at funcheaporfree.com

Lucky created a fun penguin box for his class Valentines out of a cardboard box and balloons (and a little bit of construction paper). Jeremy helped just a little bit to give him instruction and get him started but Lucky did the majority himself.

I made heart shaped pizza dough for the boys to make pizza. Jeremy made me a Valentine.

After the boys got home from school, Jeremy and I headed out on our date (see me wearing my "date" shirt?). We tried a new birding spot- Powell Slough Wildlife Management Area- which is not very far from where we live. We were able to get half the birds needed for that location for this year's UCB challenge. Woohoo.

We skipped going to a crowded restaurant on Valentine's Day but did go to Winco to pick up our traditional date food- salads. Then we found a spot near the lake to park our van and eat. It was too dark to see the water or any birds by the time we got there but it was still nice and we could see city lights. After we ate I pulled out some conversation jelly beans to read and eat together and we also talked a lot. We always have plenty to chat about. I love that about our relationship.

When we got home we found a card that Lucky made us along with a bouquet of cookie flowers the boys made (I asked them to do that as part of the surprise for Jeremy). They also turned on relaxing romantic piano music for ambience.

Then it was Jeremy's turn to surprise me. After I changed my clothes I came out to find a bouquet of actual flowers (roses), an amber necklace to go with my Jurassic Park shirt (amber- Jurassic Park, get it?), and chocolate. He's a sweetheart.

It was a beautiful Valentine's Day. I love my family.

This is an example of the Valentines Lucky gave out to his class (and Nichole). There were three different sayings with the same picture.

 

I am glad the weather was good for birding on Valentine's Day because the next day we got lots of precipitation.

The next day was also National Gumdrop Day. I ate a few gumdrops.

A New Twist on an Old Joke

It's tradition for me to play a Kool-aid joke on my kids for April Fool's Day. I've been doing it for years. Originally, I put gelatin in cups with straws and let it set. When the kids tried to drink the colored flavored sugar water, they were in for a surprise. They did get colored flavored sugar water. It was just gelatinous colored flavored sugar water. I did that for a couple years and got them each year. Other ways I've fooled them is by putting actual Kool-aid in the cups so when they were expecting Jello, they got Kool-aid. I've put Jello in a pitcher. I've put Kool-aid in a pitcher. 

This year, Jeremy suggested something different and it worked. I put food coloring in regular water so when they poured Kool-aid from the pitcher then drank it, it just tasted like water.

I told people I was not making dinner again that night (besides the drink) so they helped out. Jr. Jr. made peanut butter sandwiches with a surprise inside- graham crackers and pancake syrup. They tasted good.

Jet played a joke on me that day. Normally when it's time to take kids to school, he's willing to get up and get in the van (especially if he brings a dinosaur with him). That morning he did not want to get up at all and he made it very well known that he did not want to get up at all. It was definitely something trying to get him ready and out the door. Sigh. Oh well.

 

That morning I also made lunch for both Jeremy and Nichole and wrote notes on their bags saying, "Didn't think I'd make you lunch today, did you? April Fool's!"

Here is a picture of a couple of April Fools.

 

Friend to Friend

Recently there was a Friend to Friend event for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. It was for Primary age children and their parents, Primary leaders, etc. We watched it as a family. They talked about being like Jesus. They had activities the children could follow along with. They had music. They talked about children in different parts of the world. There was a lot to enjoy and learn from.

Lucky chose to take notes as he was watching. I love that. I hope the boys were able to get something good out of it. We are able to watch segments of the event again if we want to talk about certain things in our family. I also love that.

First Week of School

We got first day of school pictures again this year. Yippee!

Some thoughts:
It doesn't matter that we got all the kids up early for the first day of school. One child still forgot their schedule and had to come back, one almost drove off without their mask (and did forget their water bottle), and another couldn't find their backpack for a while. At least I can say I made them a yummy breakfast (breakfast burritos) before school. I don't expect that to happen very often. Thank you, Jeremy for getting cold cereal at the store.

I had my nice breakdown less than an hour after the last kids went off to school.
I always have a lot of homework the first week of school (lots of disclosure documents to read and sign and getting to know you sheets to fill out). Of course later there's the helping kids with homework.
There are plenty of things to be grateful for. My kids like school and are good students.
It was so quiet that first day with four kids gone at school. Jeremy was doing work emails and Jet was concentrating on eating when I noticed the quiet around lunch time.
Lucky's teacher sent him home with a little package of donuts and a new book. The first thing I heard when he came in was him exclaiming that he liked his teacher.

That evening we went for a drive up Provo Canyon.

Lucky had a praying mantis on his shirt so when we got it off and put it in the grass, Nichole got some good pictures of it. That was not so easy to do since it was the same color as the grass.

When we got home, everyone got to talk to Grandma and Grandpa on the phone to tell them how the first day of school went.

Since it is Jr. Jr.'s teacher's first year teaching, Jr. Jr. wanted to do something special for her to let her know she did a good job on her first day. He wrote her a note and had Jeremy make a balloon apple for him to take to her. Lucky wrote a note for his teacher, too, even though she's been teaching for a lot more years than Jr. Jr.'s teacher.

By the end of the first week, everyone was exhausted. Lucky was happy to bring home a bat toy he earned for good behavior. He then proceeded to fall asleep on the floor while reading a book.

He fell asleep on the couch the next day while plenty of things were going on around him.

Nichole and Jr. both took after school naps on some of the days.
The boys were cute during the weekend and built a blanket fort in the living room with stuffed animal walls.

But we did it. We survived the first week of school.

Sometimes Service is Hard

I've blogged quite a bit over the last few Decembers about what we've been doing to #LightTheWorld through service. Sometimes we do elaborate acts of service and sometimes they are more simple.
Sometimes it comes together really well. The kids are excited to help out and we have a great time.
For example, just a couple days ago, Nichole helped Lucky read a story from The Friend for his Family Home Evening lesson. We didn't ask her to do it. She offered. So nice.

Then we have mornings like today. First off, I didn't get a lot of sleep during the night because that's when Jet decided to be awake. I'm still working on trying to find the balance. During Thanksgiving Break, the kids all slept in so when I didn't get a lot of sleep at night, I was able to get some during the morning. And I looked something like this:

Aww. So content.
Now it's December. We're trying to do our Countdown to Christmas scripture study in the morning before school. I have this crazy idea that I can sleep after the oldest three go to school and the baby's asleep. But no. I look like this:

That's tired grumpy Mommy right there.
We've talked to the kids about doing simple acts of service for Light The World. That's what I'm trying to do. Finding simple ways to serve.
This morning, all I wanted to do was sleep. That's a way my child could do service for me. Let me sleep. Nope. Every time I dozed off, I would hear, "Mom. Mom."
"What?"
"Do you know what I can do?" Lucky wanted me to think of something fun for him to do. I kept giving him ideas of things he could do- color a picture, look at a book. He didn't like any of those ideas. So after I started to doze off and again he woke me up, I tried to give him ideas of service he could do- clean his room, clean the living room, draw a picture for someone, let Mommy sleep. No, he wanted something fun to do. I tried to remind him how important service is. Sigh. I just wanted sleep.
Finally he decided to write a note to someone at school. Finally. Phew. But then he wanted me to tell him how to spell some things so he could write the note. Ack.
In the end I didn't get much more sleep, but Lucky was pretty happy with the result of writing this note. So that's good anyway.

So sometimes even the simplest acts of service can be hard. Hard when I just want to sleep. Hard when Lucky doesn't want to do service. On the bright side, we'll be able to look back on this blog post and I'll be able to say, "I survived." The kids will look at it and say, "Ha Ha. Look at tired grumpy Mommy." This is life.

Plant a Flower Day 2014

This year for Plant a Flower Day, March 12, I drew a picture of a flower for Jr. and one for Nichole.  I wrote an "I love you" note on the back of both of them.  Jr. Jr. then took them and planted them on each of the two kids' pillows.  He was so thrilled to actually have permission to climb up on Nichole's bunk.

I don't know what the kids reactions were to the flowers since I went to a Relief Society meeting this evening before they went to bed.  But at the activity, they gave us little packets of Forget-Me-Not seeds.  I thought that was appropriate for the holiday, too.