President's Day Outing

Since we all had the day off on President's Day, we decided to take advantage of our Science Center membership another time before it expires.

A kid favorite: the water guns.

There was a new exhibit with a giant Rubik's Cube that can be controlled by 3 computers.

Brian and the kids tried the water-gopher wheel.

After a couple of hours at the Science Center, we met Uncle Craig and Aunt Sara at Pike Place for lunch at a French pastry shop. Then, we went over to check out the infamous Gum Wall.

Pretty gross when you think about it, right? Unfortunately (or not), none of us had gum so we weren't able to add our own germs to the mix.

Valentine's Day(s) 2012

Since Valentine's Day fell on a Tuesday, Wes celebrated with his preschool on Monday, we celebrated at home on Tuesday, and Sydney celebrated at preschool on Wednesday. There was a lot of celebrating going on!

The week before, I had the kids make their Valentines. From those I had pinned on Pinterest, Wes picked these Super Valentines.

I printed them off, had Wes cut them and write his name on them and then I helped him cut and put the masks on. I thought it was important that the bulk of the work be done by themselves. The were from them - not me - after all.

Out of all the pinned choices, Sydney picked these glow stick Valentines.

I think she liked that there was pink and a heart. I liked that they didn't involve candy. :) She's getting better at cutting and writing her name.

Wes was in charge of snack for his Valentine's Day party. So he took Jell-o hearts...

Grapes and strawberries...

And these heart-shaped chocolate-banana muffins that ended up having more of a texture of a brownie.

Wes made these flowers for his teacher for a Valentine's Day present. I used a cookie cutter to make the shape and he colored them. I cut them out and put them on skewers for lack of time. He wrote the note.

On Tuesday morning, I made pink heart pancakes for breakfast and gave the kids pink heart milk cubes in their milk.

Then they cut out a bunch of hearts...

And sneakily heart-attacked Dad's home office door. The kids had a great time doing this.

Before lunch, we did some Sweethearts graphing.

Then they had PB&J (H, for Wes) in the shape of hearts on heart plates. They also tried some of the gift I gave to Brian: English cheddar with bits of dark chocolate. Weird, right? I happened upon it at Trader Joe's and couldn't resist since Brian loves both cheese and chocolate. Unfortunately, no one at this house was a big fan of the combination.

After quiet time, it was present time! :) (Most of the gifts were courtesy of the dollar spot at Target.)

This was another Pinterest find that I made for Brian. I thought it ended up turning out really cute!

Every year, I get the kids a Valentine's Day book that gets put away with all of the decorations (same thing at Easter and Christmas). This year it was a Spot book for Wes and a Pinkalicious book for Sydney. It's fun to have like-new holiday books come out with the decorations.

While I forgot to take a picture, Brian and I did get to go out for a bit without the kids. Using this method, Brian and I planned our date. We went to Barnes and Noble and had a scavenger hunt of sorts then we went to Chipotle for dinner and played a Newlywed Game. Then we picked up the kids, put them to bed and watched one of the Harry Potters (we've been making our way through them over the last couple of weeks). We had a lot of fun.

As you can probably guess, I love holidays and look forward to them with great anticipation. It's so much fun having something to celebrate!

A Few Random Pictures

Wes and Sydney share a room and sleep on bunk beds. Most nights we let them talk to each other before going to sleep, but Sydney's not supposed to get on Wes' bed. Often times she does anyway (at Wes' provoking), but generally when we go to check on them before we go to bed, they're each in their own bed. However, Friday, January 27th marks the first night that Sydney actually fell asleep in Wes' bed. It's hard to be mad about their disobedience when it's so cute. :)

A tradition we've started over the last month is having a Pizza Picnic on Friday. After Brian's done with work, we go to the gym, pick up a pizza on the way home (I've tried making them at home, but I just haven't perfected it yet), and then eat pizza while watching either America's Funniest Home Videos or Myth Busters. Wes thinks AFV is hilarious and I think his new life goal is to submit his own video.

I look forward to this family time each week where we can enjoy a dinner together in happiness since the kids will eat and eat and eat without a battle (which rarely happens at meals in our house). Wes will eat four(!) pieces of pizza all by himself (when he's not laughing at AFV) and leave the crusts for me. It's a win-win all around! :)

On the night of February 6th, Wes woke me up around 2am to tell me he had thrown up. After about and hour of getting him to get the last of it out, I set him up to sleep on the floor of the bathroom. By the next morning, he woke up completely normal as if nothing had happen. I kept him home from gymnastics as a precaution, but he seemed completely fine. Tuesday night, the same thing happened around 9:30pm. Again, by the next morning he seemed great. Obviously, I wasn't going to send him to preschool, but the downside was that he would miss "N Sharing" (each child brings an item each week to share that begins with the letter they're exploring that day). So, to compensate, we did some N Sharing at home including making nests out of pretzel sticks, white chocolate, raisins, and peanuts.

After our 3-week winter vacation, Brian and I decided to detox a bit by cutting out treats/desserts/ice cream/chocolate/candy/etc for 30 days. If you know Brian at all, you would know that this was a difficult task. However, thanks to some strong will power (and competition from me), we both pulled it off! And one of the many reasons I love my husband is because of his victory breakfast on February 8th: cookies and milk! I can't help but smile at his love for treats.





On February 13th, I decided I should actually start using/doing some of the things I'd pinned on Pinterest so I made the kids some Cloud Dough. (Tip: I quartered the recipe using a travel size baby oil bottle.) The kids made a bigger mess than I had anticipated, but they had a good time.

Snowmageddon

The day off from school for Martin Luther King Day ended up being an entire week off for much of the Puget Sound region thanks to what the weather reporters were calling Snowmageddon.

Since Brian and I both work from home, nothing really changed for us except we weren't able to get out much. No school, no gym, etc. Luckily, we can walk to the library and the kids' gymnastics class!

On Tuesday, the 17th, the kids were excited to get out and play in the snow. I was more than happy to let them play in the backyard while I stayed warm inside!

On Wednesday, the 18th, we were officially "snowed in" for Seattle's standards (us former mid-westerners had seen worse though). I set up a cozy tent for the kids so they could watch snow shows on Netflix.

They also put cotton balls on snowmen.

Wes wrote: "my snowman is looking ---->". Interesting thing about Wes' writing is that when he's writing backwards (right to left), he actually writes his letters backwards as well. I'm not sure why he thinks to do that.

Sydney's favorite part was squeezing out the glue!

After hours of being inside, we took a walk to the library. The kids wore their Link and Zelda costumes.

You can see how deep the snow was on Sydney's boots.

On the walk home from the library, I gave each of the kids a squirt bottle with blue water in it to paint the snow. It was fun for a minute, but it was actually really cold outside! It was fun to see the snow for a week, but it was comforting to know that eventually we'd be back to the Seattle rain!

The Seattle Children's Museum

On Martin Luther King Day, we used a Groupon we had for The Seattle Children's Museum. Since this was the beginning of the week of snow we got, it wasn't very crowded.

I think Wes is getting a little big for these cars, but he still loves them!

Sydney took Brian on a bus ride.

Sydney was running my credit card for the Mexican food that Brian and I had.

Sydney is scanning her groceries that she wanted to purchase from the grocery store.

Wes wanted to make sure he got some ice cream before he checked out.

Brian helped the kids build a table.

Then I helped Wes build a triangular table. It was a good thing he had a construction hat on! It was hard work! :)

For some reason, Sydney wanted to climb to the very back (the trunk) of this bus.

The kids got to do "Fire and Ice" painting. They used ice cube paints and blew red paint (fire) through straws.

After a couple of hours of playing, we made our way back through the snow to our car!