Awesome Weekend!!

Valentine's weekend was great!!  Here is a quick recap and a lot of pictures....

 

Claire's Valentine's party at school -  so excited she could barely sleep

 

Her hair was long enough to put into hearts for the big day - something she had talked about for weeks

 

She got lots of candy at school and shared it with her little bro - she is really good at sharing with him...most of the time

 

My little valentines delivered their valentines to the neighbors and some friends - and did a little mud puddle jumping at the same time

 

I got flowers from my man - he is the best

 

Claire got flowers from her daddy - he really is awesome

 

Thai take-out and sparkling cider for dinner - yum, yum, yum

 

Date night on Saturday - loved Safe Haven

 

New kitchen table - looks so much better

 

Bountiful Temple with some of my favorite people - can't believe my once mia maid is going on a mission already

 

Birthday party for my little sis - can't believe we are getting so old

 

Trip to Morgan - fav cousin is leaving on a mission

 

And the icing on the cake....

 

..........Drum Roll Please........

 

My almost two year old little buddy went #1 and #2 in the potty and we haven't even started to potty train him.  Wahoo!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Litter, a prince, and a daddy-daughter date

Not a day goes by that Claire doesn't have me just laughing away.  I love my little girl so much. 

While delivering Valentines....
Claire:  What is this??? (totally annoyed and disgusted voice throughout the entire conversation)
Me:  Umm, it looks like a can of coke.
Claire: No!  This is called litter!
             Do they not want to take care of this world??? 
             Do they not love this beautiful earth that Heavenly Father created for us??? 
             Do they not have a garbage???

Today Luke and I went to the Bountiful temple....
Claire: How was the temple today?
Luke:  It was good.
Claire:  Did you see anyone marry their prince?

Daddy-daughter date tonight....
Me:  How was your date with Daddy?
Claire:  It was fun.
Me:  Did you make sure your date always opened the door for you?
Claire:  Yes he did.
Me:  Did your date pay for your dinner?
Claire:  Yep.
Me:  Did your date hold your hand?
Claire:  Yes he did (smile on her face)
Me:  We don't ever kiss on a first date.  I hope you didn't let your date kiss you.
Claire:  He did kiss me!!  (just giggling away)

 

 

 

 

Happy Valentines Day

Hope you all have a great Valentines Day.

Planet Play

We are so sick of the snow around here.  Normally we will get snow a few times during the winter and it is always gone within a week.  But not this year!!!  We are going on two months of snow on the ground.  Even the kids are sick of it and ready for it to be gone.  Last week we decided to get out of the house and go have some fun so we headed for Planet Play.  We ate way too much pizza and ice cream, played arcade games, attemped a game of glow in the dark miniature golf (do not attemp with an almost two year old!!), rode some rides, and just enjoyed being together.   

 

 

Now where should we escape to next weekend???

Where did January go???

January is the month that always seems to last forever but this year it just flew by.  Between hanging out with the kids, sledding, family craft day, Claire taking swimming lessons, ladies craft night, Luke working on Claire's new bed, Claire and I making Valentine decor (the whole house needs to be decorated, she says), Luke finishing up his last week of school ever (Wahoo!!!), and Crue thinking he's an naked acrobat, the blog just got neglected.  And it didn't help much that my camera battery went dead last month and for the life of me I could not find it until today.  But we are all doing great, extremely happy, and oh so ready for winter to be over.

All the cousins on Christmas night

We normally don't get alot of snow and when we do it only stays on the ground for a few days so we decided to take full advantage and go sledding before it melted.

 

I love this little boy and his monster hat.

 

 

 

New Years Eve we carried on with the tradition and we all went bowling.

 

 

 

 

After bowling we went back to my Dad and Holly's and spent the rest of the night eating pizza and playing games.

While the majority of us all were sleeping in on New Years Day, Luke got up early and ran a race.

Getting ready for Christmas

 This last year my little munchkin has turned into a crafting, decorating, and baking girl.  That being said, there was now way we were going to get out of making gingerbread houses.   She planned them out, had me write down a list of all the candy she thought we needed, made me read the list back to her several times to make sure I didn't leave anything out, and at the last minute the jammie-wearing girl jumped in the van with me because she could stand the thought of me picking out the candy without her. 
Lucky for me, she wasn't too particular about how we made them so we tried making them out of rice crispies and sticking the graham crakers on the outside.  It didn't work out as planned but Claire didn't seem to care at all.  She had a blast!! 

 

 

Randomness

This last weekend I realized that I hadn't really taken pictures in awhile of all the little things.  The little things that you don't want to forget but you know you will if you don't write it down or take a picture.  So here is a little randomness from our weekend.

 

Claire loves taping her mouth shut.  She thinks it is just hilarious. So hilarious that she has gone through about six things of scotch tape in the last couple months.  Well I can't say that all of it went over her mouth.  She did have a "great idea" a while ago that she would be able to keep Crue out of all the drawers and cupboards if she just taped them closed and since she was so excited about her great idea, I just didn't have the heart to tell her that it wouldn't work.  I guess I can't forget about the week earlier this year when she decided that the chairs would look more beautiful if they had tape all over them.  Hmmm, maybe by daughter just has a tape fetish.  Anyway, Claire came over to me with tape over her mouth and Crue thinks he needs to do everything his sister does so pretty soon this is how they looked.  

Crue is all about the markers these days and since Claire is always busy with one project or another he usually has plenty of access to them.    He is also all about getting his picture taken these days and the second he sees a cell phone or camera he starts yelling "cheese".

 

Claire burned  out the motor on our last vacuum and it looks like Crue might do it to this one.  He loves to vacuum and can get quite mad if he is not given his fair share of vacuum time.   Look at that cheeser too.  He cracks me up.  I seriously love Claire's retro carpet.

 

Another fun game at our house is getting buried in the ever growing collection of stuffed animals. 

 

 

Claire trying to not get bucked off the horse.

Claire and Luke trying to get away from the lion.

 

Claire got an early Christmas present from our great neighbors which she immediately exclaimed was the "most amazing present in the world ever".  They gave her a childrens baking set.  My little girl loves to bake.  At 8:00 the next morning she had her dad out of bed and helping her put the baking set to good use. 

They made cupcakes and this gingerbread man. 

My Little Dancin' Girl

Claire had her first dance recital last weekend.  She practiced and practiced and all her hard work paid off...she did a great job.  It was so fun to watch her up on stage dancing her little heart out. 

Her dance recital was all she could talk about all day long.  And her excitement doubled when she realized that she would get to wear a little bit of makeup.  Several hours before her recital she was bouncing off the walls with excitement.  "Is it time to go yet?  Mom, I think it is time to go?  Does my makeup still look good mom?  Dad, how do I look?  Dad, come look at my hair and see how beautiful it looks.  Mom, Dad says like I look like I am six years old!!  It's dark outside so I think its time to go.  Mom, I don't want them to start without me."....and on and on it went.   We finally decided to get out of the house for awhile and go out to dinner just hoping to get her mind of the recital.



 

 

 

Several days later she told me that she needed to sleep on couch that night with her tap shoes on because the next day was going to be a big day.  I love how her "Big Day" consisted of dancing at an assisted living center and then going to the ward Christmas party.  She was so excited about her "big day" that we couldn't tell her no. 

My not so little anymore little guy

Over the last month my little baby boy has turned into a just a little boy. It makes me so sad in some ways but excited in other ways.

His speech has totally picked up and not only is he talking a ton, but we can actually understand him.

He has picked the terrible two's right up.

He has learned how to climb out of the crib in no time at all so he is officially in a toddler bed. I can't say he actually sleeps in it but he starts out there at least.

 

When we go check on him he is usually on the floor somewhere in his room.  Two little legs sticking out from under a blanket.   

Or sometimes he is found in the rocking chair.

I just had to include this.  Here is Claire sitting in our time out spot. It just kills Crue to see his sis in trouble and will try to sneak over and sit on her lap until she gets out.  On this day she ended up with two babies feeling sorry for her and keeping her company while she did her time. 

He really wants to just hang out with the big kids but it makes me happy that he still wants his mommy to rock him at night and sing him primary songs. 

He loves to sing popcorn popping.  He also thinks he should have complete control over the radio while we are in the car and gets mad if we don't listen to his songs.  This boy will have the primary songs all memorized long before he is ever a sunbeam.  

He loves to dance.

He still thinks his sister is the funniest person in the world. 

He torments his sister just as much as she torments him but they love each other so much.  When she is sad he runs over to give her hugs and comfort her and Claire instantly comes to his defense if she thinks another little kid is picking on him or if he is wronged in anyway. 

He is still a total mommy's boy but gets so excited when his daddy walks in the door after work and runs into his arms.

He tends to throw things if he doesn't get his way or else he will go over to the table and try to lift it up when he is mad.   

He loves to sweep and vacuum.

He gets into my make-up more than Claire ever has.

He has the best smile. 

We love you so much Crue. 

Thanksgiving

I love that our family is close enough that we get to spend all the holidays with them.  This year we started out our Thanksgiving weekend like we normally do...baking, baking, and then more baking.  This year we met at my house to make pies and we had so much fun.  I took tons of pictures and then realized that I never put the SD card in.  I'm brilliant!!  I had some great pictures of Crue too because he was totally into the whole pie making thing this year.  Anyway, we really did have a great time with my mom, sis, bro, and the kiddos. 

 

Thanksgiving morning was spent down at Thanksgiving Poing since Luke was running a half marathon there. He did a great job. We are proud of you babe!!

 

 
We had Thanksgiving dinner with the in-laws and then went to my dad's for pies later that night.  It was a great day.