Flowers

My wonderful husband surprised me with flowers at work for Valentine's Day.  They were red (my favorite color); pink (Will's favorite color) and purple (our family's favorite color: Go Wildcats!) After the first week, the orchids were past their prime, so I trimmed the stems on the remaining flowers and rearranged them for this beautiful mix: 

I have loved having them on my desk these past 10 days.  They've really brightened my spirits; and they smell so great (now that the orchids are gone :-))!

Swimming Lesson

Yesterday we took Will to a free swimming lesson at a local swim school.   Our friends take their girls there and speak very highly of it.   Since Will has been having so much fun taking soccer lessons at school, I thought he might be ready to try this.  He was very apprehensive once we got to the pool, but once Coach Mike worked his magic, he didn't want to leave!  I would love for Will to have formal lessons to go along with our family time at open swim at our gym.  I want him to be safe on our vacations, and I also think swimming is a great lifetime activity.

 

Campout

Will is going through another faze where he wants to sleep on the floor instead of his bed.  This is the campsite he has made most recently.  His favorite pal, Curious George, has also been demoted to second favorite with the recent addition of Hamish, one of the triplet brother bears from the movie, Brave.  Will received his "little bear" as a party favor at the Princess Party.   Oh, and I can't believe I forgot to mention that he doesn't want to wear pajamas right now.  He sleeps in just undies ("because I'm at home, so it's ok" as he always says) and the shirt he wore all day.  Pick your battles, right?!  I'll take asleep versus a fight over clothes or bedding!

 

Princess Party

Several of my co-workers have kids around the same age.  The one we spend the most time with has two girls.  One of her daughters had her 6th birthday last weekend.  The theme was Merida from the Disney movie Brave.   The birthday girl was dressed like Merida; her sister (same age as Will) was dressed as Belle; and the other guests (4 more little girls) as various princesses or just in cute party dresses. That's right:  the princesses and Will wearing his Star Wars hoodie and jeans. 

Will doesn't seem too bothered by being the only boy.  In fact, he always asks about going to Ava and Hannah's house.  He LOVES their play kitchen, and they have a lot of other non-princess or fairy toys to play with as well.  Plus, we usually go for birthday or pool parties, so there is always fun food and cupcakes!

(Side note: I didn't realize that fairies are all the rage now for 3-6 year old girls. . . .Now I know.)

FAMILY

My sister-in-law had a great idea for a gift for her parents' anniversary this week.  She asked the other siblings/in-laws to send her pictures of each of the grandkids holding one of the letters in the word FAMILY.   Then she printed them in black and white and put them in this long frame.   The finished project turned out great, so I had to share the results and give her kudos for her clever idea and execution! 

 

Happy Valentine's Day

Ooooh!  Candy and stickers for me?! Wow!

Great Wolf Lodge

What better mid-winter getaway than a trip to a waterpark with friends?!   Jason, Will and I packed up and drove to Kansas City for a fun filled weekend, including meeting this new baby girl!

We stayed two of the nights at the Legends at the Great Wolf Lodge.  If you want to know how to get two little boys to sleep soundly, the answer is take them to a waterpark!   I didn't take any pictures while we were inside the waterpark, but we were all worn out from the climbing and sliding.

Just as we always hoped (before we had kids), our boys played like the best of friends.  They had a slumber party in their Kids Kamp on Saturday night and at home on Sunday night.

Super Bowl Sunday with three kids was relatively tame - starting with Cabela's for the boys and a lovely brunch with a friend for me.  That evening we watched the game and filled up on tasty treats before all heading to bed at a mostly respectable hour.  (FYI, the Babylandia commercial was one of my personal favorites!)  On Monday we packed up and headed home. Will was an outstanding traveler for our roadtrip.  He was very low key with a minimal amount of whining.  On Friday he spent most of the drive working on a coloring book, and on Monday he napped (me too!) and played with his Cars.  

 

Inauguration Day

This inauguration day isn't as exciting for us at the last one was when we were living in Washington DC!  I was so excited to attend the swearing in along with the masses on the Mall!  I stood between the Washington Monument and the World War II Memorial.  I seem to recall that I packed everything I needed into my ski coat so I didn't have to bring a bag or purse.

Jason wasn't able to join me, since we had just returned from our warm Los Cabos Babymoon, and his co-workers in Wisconsin didn't have the day off like mine in DC did!  Instead, I took the "little guy" who was still baking in my belly!  Here was my 22 week belly shot before I left the house that morning.

I was very happy to have that internal heater on such a freezing cold day.  I was also happy with the clean and readily available portable toilets set up on in front of the White House!

After the swearing in ceremony, it was a very long, slow process to exit the Mall and the immediate area.  My legs hurt the rest of the day due to the hour of shuffling that was required.  I stopped for lunch to warm up at one of my favorite restaurants, and then took the Metro home to thaw out and watch the parade on TV with Jason.  To witness it live was likely a once in a lifetime experience and definitely ranks in my top 5 living in DC experiences.

Winter Days

We're officially in the midst of winter, and although we haven't had any measurable snow, we do have cold and sometimes windy days.  We've also had ice on our deck several days.   Yesterday it wasn't too windy and the sun was out, so we loaded up the wagon with a few sand toys (our sand box is "closed" for the season since the sand is frozen) and walked down to the school yard.  Will was in such serious sand box withdrawal that he didn't even look at the slides or swings while we were there!  We spent an hour building mountains before the wind picked up and we needed to head home.   As we were walking home, Jason was just getting home from the funeral.  He "raced" us the last block home and amazingly enough Mommy running with the wagon was faster than Daddy's car!