So, for starters, I wanted to send out some photo valentines to family but needed to take some recent photos of the kids! One Sunday I decided "now or never!" and started snapping.
Hannah's posed smile was a little scary!
But with a softer setting her face softened too and we got some cute shots!
Nathan is always happy to pose for pictures :) Here are a few of his dapper portraits!
I tried to get a few of the two big kids together but they are just so silly together!
Nathan was bored with photos by the time I tried to get "brother" pics... but Levi stopped being hateful towards his suit for just long enough for me to take this one, so it's a keeper!
Getting the 3 of them together proved to be more difficult... I have decided that it takes at least 2 people to photograph children: one to make silly oogly faces at them and the other to snap the picture!
But, here they are in my best effort to at least get them all facing the same direction!
Once I took Levi's suit off and put him in jammies he was all smiles again.. little stinker!
With the photos and valentines done it was time to personalize!
Hannah picked some Minnie Mouse valentines and Nathan chose Super Man because it came with a tattoo for each valentine.
Nathan wrote on all of his and then proceeded to help Hannah fill hers out while she colored anything that could maybe be interpreted as paper :) And Levi enjoyed watching the spectacle from the bumbo seat!
With all the valentines filled out, and most of them packaged up into envelopes to mail out- I realized there was a pile left that they had made for our immediate family. They were anxious to deliver them (a week early) so I devised a plan!
That night for FHE we talked about ways to tell and show our family that we love them and for the activity we converted empty tissue boxes into valentine mail boxes that we each decorated and hung on our doors.
Here and mine and daddy's! Every day of the week leading up to Valentine's Day we snuck treats and prizes and love notes and service coupons into each others mailboxes. It was really fun!
Nathan even composed and wrote all of his by himself! He liked to roll them up and tape them, and he called them his "love scrolls" :)
To deliver with the valentines to their local friends we made heart-shaped sugar cookies.
This kids had a great time decorating them!
(I know it looks like Hannah is constipated, but that is the face I get when I tell her to say "cheese"..)
That's a better smile! Hope your friends like sprinkles!!!! Where is the cookie?
Such happy kiddos, and fun to see them excited to share their love with friends and family.
This is not about valentine's, but I wanted to include it!
Nathan has an incredibly active imagination and comes up with the strangest things. Lately, he has decided that he has a pet octopus! He has taken to wearing these protective goggles around the house and when I asked him about it his response was, "Well, mom, my pet octopus doesn't know he's my pet yet and sometimes he hits me in the face when I try to feel him, so these are to protect my eyes."
I should have known :)
And a shot of the happy naked baby because I can! Love those big blue eyes!
And another unrelated tidbit: while we were playing with the little guy and trying to get him to giggle for us Nathan and Hannah decided they wanted a moment to shine! They both have been singing the Frozen songs pretty non-stop since they saw the movie and decided they wanted me to video it. (Bear with them as they both had colds!) It's not their best performance of it, but it's still cute :)
On actual Valentine's day we invited over 2 other couples from our ward for an evening of fondue! We hired our usual sitter to watch all of the kids in the back of the house and man the "kiddo party" and food while the adults enjoyed an evening of great food and conversation.
I feel like a total slacker that I did not take more pictures than this, but at least I snapped a couple!
Here is Jeremy filling up our new fondue pots (yay!) with the cheese.
And a close-up of the cheese dippers!
I was too far lost in conversation to remember to take photos of the chocolate, but it was SOOO yummy! In the end, a delightful evening. And, although the house was strewn with toys and the kitchen full of dippers and containters needing to be put away, we waved good-bye to our guests very glad they came. I hopped in the car to run the sitter home and came back to a LOVELY surprise! Hubby and the kids had cleaned up the whole mess! The kids each did their rooms and toys (and daddy even vacuumed!) and hubby did the kitchen. My super hubby never ceases to amaze me :)
The next night was the stake daddy-daughter dance. I didn't realize what a big deal it was, but on the way home our sitter told me about it, and how she has gone every year since she was 2, and how there is plenty for dads and daughters of all ages to do and enjoy. Turns out she was right!
Our little Diva decided she wanted to go as a fairy, and not Tinkerbell because she is green. She wanted to wear her pink wings with her pink sparkly flower dress... and her sparkly tennis shoes! The shoes she now refers to as her "dancing" shoes :)
When they came home I got to hear all about it. Hannah has never seemed to connected to her daddy! She had the night of her life :) Jeremy said he has seldom seen a wedding as ornate as this was, with a tent in the gym made from long this white sheets, to lights and archways in every doorway and down the hall, with games and activities in several rooms and treats galore!
Hannah came home with her face painted, a flower on her arm, a big pink balloon, a huge smile on her sleepy face and a love letter to daddy about how much she loved dancing with him.
Her favorite activity was the hula hoops- here is a short video Jeremy took for me!
And a close-up of her face paint:
Nathan and I stayed in to have some mommy-son time while Levi was in bed. He picked out a special bag of candy from the store and he decided it would be fun to have an xbox tournament- for each game or race he won he got a candy and same for me. It was fun. We played lots, talked lots and enjoyed some sweets together. An all around win for family bonding this Valentine's!
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