My Valentines.



 

 

This week has been spent celebrating love and Valentine's Day. We baked Valentine cookies and crafted Valentine crafts. My favorite Valentine, and I'm pretty sure Ella's too, was the heart shaped cheerio bird feeder. Ella got to pass out her Valentine cards at school today and came home with a ton of Valentine cards from her classmates. She told me this afternoon that this has been the best holiday she has had so far. Then at bedtime she said "I had a great Valentines Day".  Kids truly make the holidays special. Tom and I haven't celebrated Valentine's Day in years. He has always been one of those guys that randomly buys flowers or says go out and do something special for yourself or plans a dinner out. We don't need a scheduled day to say I love you or do something special for each other. Same for our children, we try to make each day special and make them feel loved, today we just went a little overboard. And there's nothing wrong with that. My girls have shown me what pure, unconditional, true love is. And they came from the love Tom and I share each day.

 



 

As this picture shows, lighting is everything. but I liked the pic so I didnt want to delete it

Littles.

This little one said her second word yesterday, dada. I repeated it over and over for about two days and bam, she started saying it. The tips of both the bottom teeth are poking through!

And OMG this picture melts my heart.

This little one never ceases to amaze me with her endless amount of knowledge and her sharp memory.
This morning on the way to school I was talking to the receptionist at the dentist. I was rescheduling my appt and telling her that for this visit the dentist wants to take an x ray and put on a temporary cap. End of phone call, no more mention of caps or dentist. Skip forward to me picking Ella up from school, first thing she asks me when she gets in the car "mommy did you get your cap on your tooth?"

(posing with one of my very first photography props!)

Then tonight she is drawing these scribbles on her easel and telling me that they are constellations. That they are the big dipper, the little dipper, and a man and his dog. She even talked about where the dippers are in relation to each other. I mentioned something on Facebook about it and her teacher shared that during nature class today they had "star lab" and discussed the constellations. I love to hear about all she is learning in school and that she is retaining it!

Around here.

I finished up Ella's Valentine Cards for school last week. I have been working on them off and on for a couple weeks. I didn't want to wait til last minute like I did with Christmas gifts and have to rush through them. 

 

 

I will never again print at Walmart. I know that a professional lab is the way to go but I wanted quick and simple. Well quick cut off my letter s on Valentine's and quick got my crappy coloring and contrast. Lesson learned.

Regardless they turned out super cute!

Take a picture, print it 4x6, use an exacto knife to cut a slit above and below the hand, stick sucker in and Voila!

For her 27 classmates and we plan to mail out a few to friends who don't go to school with her

Last Friday I helped out at Ella's Winter Celebration at school. Similar to the fall celebration there were craft work stations set up that the kids rotated through. The theme was Valentine's Day and most the crafts related to the holiday. The kids also decorated a heart sugar cookie with fruits and jam. One of the kids in Ella's class happens to have a grandmother who is a singing telegram, Mrs. Happy. She came and sang a winter celebration song and made the teachers dance. Another child's mom did an awesome job painting the kids faces! We had a lot of fun.

Once home, Ella had to get back to taking care of her many babies

Ella came down with congestion/head cold last Tuesday. She was finally getting over it this weekend. Claire came down with it on Friday but worse than Ella. That child has had so much thick, yellow snot pouring out of her nose. She is so congested, and drooling, and having trouble sleeping. Last week her lower gums were really swollen with a translucent, raised slit. I knew the tooth was about to pop at any point. You can now feel the very very tip of the rigid top of the one tooth but you can't see it. Now right beside it is a translucent swollen slit. She is all rashy on her cheeks and neck from drooling, teething, and snot. Poor girl is trying to pop two teeth while she has a head cold. No wonder she is cranky, not sleeping, and looking miserable. Still photogenic though!

This morning I woke up congested and my throat is killing me! This afternoon the crown on my back tooth came completely off. I can't get into the dentist until Thursday so it'll be a fun, painful few days with not a lot of eating or drinking. sigh...