Bella and Ben's Love Shack

I have so much love in my life! It's fun to celebrate that today! We started the morning with heart shaped sausage and pancakes, and scrambled eggs on our new Valentine dishes!


We hosted a Valentine's play date today! I love organizing fun little events! We had our friends Leah and her kids Adria and Isaac come, and our other friends Wendy and her kids Lourili and Griffen. We started by decorating the table runner with stickers, stamps, crayons, and markers. Then we made heart mobiles, bracelets, and yarn hearts. We had a yummy lunch of fruit, heart cheese, spinach salad, heart shaped pizza, and pink strawberry milk. Then we iced and decorated our own cupcakes, enjoyed chocolate covered strawberries, and played downstairs. Bella picked out animal Valentine's to hand out to her friends and loved helping me play host!

Dinner and Dancing

Our small group had a fun night out at church Friday night to celebrate Vday. They provided child care and had an Italian restaurant cater, and a live jazz band of about 12 men for dancing! We we pretty underdressed compared to some people, but we still enjoyed it! The decorations were so pretty, we even won the center piece from our table! The food was amazing, and the company even better! We were pretty rusty on the dance floor but got back into the "swing" of things and had a great time!

Valentine fun with Gigi

Last week Gigi planned a day full of fun Valentine activities for Bella, Sophie, and Benjamin. They did stickers, heart collages, painted, made chocolate suckers, glitter, a balloon race, heart shaped PB & J, and read books! I think the biggest hit was running down the hallway with the balloons to throw in the basket. The kids were definitely worn out because they slept after we got home until 5pm! That was the best Valentine I could have asked for! We love you Gigi!

Date with Daddy

Saturday Brandon took Bella to her first movie, Tangled, as their Valentine date. She was so excited! She picked out her dress and couldn't wait to have special time with Brandon! During the movie she kept holding Brandon's hand and kissing him on the cheek! She did great and sat and watched the whole thing! She stood up once in her chair to look how big the theater was!


Bella was blowing kisses to the camera! What a ham!

Home Depot Day

Last weekend we went to the kid's workshop at Home Depot! She was so excited and only wanted Daddy's help. I guess she has figured out he's better with tools than I am! She did a great job helping daddy make her Valentine heart shelf. Benjamin tried to get ahold of some tools, and was really interested in climbing on the big machinery.

A little more fun in the snow!

A week or so ago we had an official blizzard! It was the most snow, wind, and freezing temperatures we've had in a long time! Bella and I bundles up one afternoon and decided to explore! She had so much fun and I'm thankful this was a positive experience in the snow this time!

Bella making her first snow angel. It's so fun to teach someone something like this that we just take for granted knowing! She was so cute trying to figure it out!

It was very important to her to bring her kite that she made in preschool outside to fly it!

A fun inside activity with daddy's shaving cream!

Benjamin's 15 Months old

Benjamin has really taken off the past few months. He is finally walking and walking all over the house! today we went to the gym and we walked up and opened the little kids door all by himself and walked right in! Not even a hug for me! :) He's starting to say more words and phrases like "here he is", "all done", "thank you", and "choo choo". It's begun to be very difficult to take him out to eat. I remember this stage with Bella! It is also very difficult and messy for him to eat at home. So meal times are not his forte. He throws everything including the top of his tray on the floor when he's decided he's finished. This too shall pass. Benjamin has had one hair cut, loves brushing his teeth, playing with cars, trains, and all of Bella's toys! He loves having a story time before bed and giving everyone hugs and kisses. He's so sweet, I love my little man!