Valentine's and more

This is a picture of Nick on his first day ever of skiing. It was sooooo fun! He did really well. He even talked me into taking him down a Black Diamond. If you have ever heard of the color-code book, you will know what I mean when I say that I need to work on cultivating the red side of my personality. On our way up the chair lift to the bunny hill, Nick told me that we need to take a left off the chair lift, because he was ready to go down the black diamond classified stretch off to the left. I told him that Black Diamond's are the very hardest hill to go down and that maybe we should wait. His reply was, "Mom, I am like Indiana Jones. I do adventures. Did you think that I was a baby? Now promise me that we will go down the black diamond. Say that we will, and then we have to, okay mom?" He was so confident, that I was actually convinced that maybe it was a good idea. Where was the big blinking light in my head that said, "Tyla! Take control of this situation! He's only four!"? I don't know. Apparently it doesn't exist. I was in such a hard snow plow (turning down a black diamond with a four-year-old between your legs who really has no idea how to turn with you doesn't work. I now know that extremely well.), that my knees were facing each other, and I think my hips came out of socket. But at least he has bragging rights now, and if you speak to him sometime in the next week, chances are you'll hear about how he darted down a Black Diamond with the greatest of ease.

This is a picture of Clara after she dumped a bottle of Elmer's glue on her head. Today I spent hour giving her a long bath, rubbing lavender oil all over her, getting her dressed in an adorable new dress, tights, shoes, pigtails with matching ribbons - and all an entire two hours before church started. 20 minutes before it started I found her on top of the kitchen counter (she now scales barstools), with an entire cube of butter rubbed through her hair, and the pitcher of orange juice dumped on her head (apparently she was thirsty). I should have taken a picture, but at the time I wasn't really in a cherishing mood.
And Valentine's Day! My Grandma came over Valentine's Day morning for heart shaped pancakes. She was the flipper.

Personally, I think you can definitely tell these are hearts.

Clara doing her best in spite of the fact that her parents forgot to give her a fork and cut her pancake up.

Clara getting her first Valentine. The thing I think that is really funny about this picture is that she is randomly wearing Jake's snowboots (see previous post on her shoe fetish).

Roses in our wedding colors...

After breakfast, the kids and Chad cleaned up and Grandma and I headed off to our very favorite store - the consignment store in downtown Eagle. The best thing about shopping with my Grandma is that she has impeccable taste and never, ever, ever gets impatient and wants to leave, even when I am trying on approximately 56 outfits. Also, she bought me the cutest bright yellow sandals in the world as an early birthday present. I love my Grandma!!

Okay, so here's the deal - I used to be really in to Valentine's Day being a family holiday. We'd have a big celebration all day - candlelight family dinner, the whole works - but then I decided, whatever. The kids can have New Year's Eve, their birthdays, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, St. Patricks Day (the leprauchans do leave golden coins under their pillows), Fourth of July, Easter, April Fools Day, May Day, all day every day, but Valentine's Day - it's MINE! And Chad's of course :), so we left the kids with a babysitter at noon with a heart shaped take-and-bake pizza and didn't see them again until February 15th. I love Valentine's Day!

On Wednesday of this last week, we needed a break from homeschool. So we took off in the car to RAFIKI, an indoor play center. I loved it. It is basically a huge play area that is ridiculously overpriced, with plush couches all through it and latte's available to designer purse mom's who are complaining to their friends about the two-hour limit their gym has for day care. It was kind of fun to pretend like this was actually my life. And the kids loved it, and it was incredibly clean. Workers literally follow you around picking up after you, and ocassionally disinfecting if your child looked particularly disgusting. So naturally I was glad that the fungus on Nick's scalp had cleared up.

Nick was pretty sure that this was the same kind of adventure that Indiana Jone's went through. He was extremely relieved to get out alive.

Clara stayed occupied the entire two hours by going down this slide over, and over, and over, and over again.

I took this this morning of my two little girls. I can't believe Savannah is already halfway to 18, and that Clara isn't even classified a baby anymore. I love, adore, these girls, and can't wait to see their lives unfold.