Our Valentine’s Day was stuffed with easy enjoyable. We made German pancakes for breakfast, had a scrumptious dinner of shrimp and scallops and I fell asleep as Ryan was studying aloud to Chase earlier than 9 p.m. I used to be exhausted and a comfortable Valentine’s Day at house was all I wished. I additionally completely beloved wanting via our boys’ Valentines with them after faculty. Does anybody else keep in mind overanalyzing Valentines out of your elementary faculty crush to see if possibly there was any hidden that means within the little cardboard Valentine they tore out of a pack of 12 only for you?
Our large youngsters’ faculty has a convention the place they do a brief poem for every child of their class relatively than a standard Valentine (they’ve greater than a month to work on them) and it’s so cute to learn little snapshots into how their classmates view them in school. Chase was additionally awfully candy and adopted his class Valentine format to make Valentines for me and Ryan as effectively.
You recognize that one goes in my “keeper” pile.
Our Valentine’s Day was great in its simplicity and we continued extra of our enjoyable on Saturday!
Saturday
The chilly, moist climate continued via the weekend however we nonetheless managed to take advantage of it. I’ve been that means to higher set up the boys’ artwork provides (particularly their markers, crayons, gel crayons, and so on.) and eventually bought round tackling this job on Saturday.
I used this storage bin to prepare all the pieces and it labored effectively as a result of the internal bins have been lengthy sufficient to carry coloured pencils and Crayola Clicks markers which wasn’t the case with different craft group bins we’ve tried (and returned) previously.
Right here’s the earlier than:
And the after:
(Nonetheless loving our Walmart cane cupboards a lot!)
Oh completely happy day!
Since we had a bunch of damaged crayons on our fingers after going via all the pieces, we determined to present selfmade coronary heart crayons a go. My mother despatched me photos of an identical venture she did with my sister’s youngsters which impressed me to strive it with our boys.
Two suggestions we discovered further useful: 1. Place the crayons in heat water to soak earlier than peeling and breaking them up into small items. This can make the paper simpler to peel off and the crayons simpler to interrupt. 2. Overfill your silicone molds with the crayon items. The crayons soften down fairly a bit!
We then baked the crayons within the oven at 350 levels till all of the items have been melted (our molds have been relatively small, so ours have been completed in lower than 10 minutes) after which we left them out to chill till they have been fully onerous.
The boys bought a kick out of this venture and now we’ve some enjoyable coronary heart crayons to make use of for numerous craft initiatives!
As soon as craft time was completed, it was late within the morning and we have been all prepared for our large journey of the day: Our annual Valentine’s Day Mission!
When Ryan and I have been relationship, we used to separate up on the identical time on Valentine’s Day, set a finances after which come again collectively to swap little surprises. That is now a convention we love doing with our boys! We divided up into groups at Goal — Ryan and Ryder after which me, Chase and Rhett — and the boys spent about half-hour searching for somewhat shock or two for one another.
The boys get SO into it yearly and it’s all the time a whole lot of enjoyable for me and Ryan to listen to the thought course of behind the items they select for one another. (Legos reigned supreme for the large youngsters this yr whereas Rhett was thrilled with a brand new Paw Patrol toy Ryder chosen for him.)
We ended our enjoyable with cake pops (for the boys) and chai lattes (for me and Ryan) and had such a enjoyable time. Our boys actually stay up for today all yr lengthy and it’s been such a treasured custom for our household!
For the reason that rain was nonetheless coming down onerous exterior, we figured we should always proceed with the indoor enjoyable and ended up driving to Nice Wolf Lodge.
Final week, at a birthday celebration, one other mother advised me the last word Nice Wolf Lodge hack for youths who love MagiQuest: You possibly can go to GWL and pay solely $15 to activate a MagiQuest wand and do MagiQuest everywhere in the lodge with out paying for a full day go. It was the perfect tip and we spent $30 to activate Chase and Ryder’s wands (Rhett was simply thrilled to have a wand that lights issues up) and spent 2+ hours working in every single place.
Ultimately we made our means house and dug into fish tacos for dinner. I adopted this recipe for the tacos and the cilantro lime slaw and Ryan and I beloved them! (The boys opted for leftover shrimp, although Chase ate a number of the fish, too!)
We spent the remainder of our night constructing Legos and stress-free a bit earlier than the same old bedtime routine.
As soon as all of the boys have been in mattress, Ryan and I streamed the present Landman and I’m on the fence about this one. My dad and mom and a handful of my school girlfriends all extremely really helpful it to us however I don’t love a whole lot of violence and stress once I watch a present so we’ll see. (The primary episode gave me Breaking Dangerous vibes which I initially appreciated however ultimately deserted as a result of it was too darkish and disturbing for me.) Anybody else on the market a Landman fan? Ought to I keep it up?
Sunday
Sunday was a really relaxed day. It was chilly and wet to begin (once more) and Ryan and I took turns getting in our respective exercises. After that, although, we showered and spent some chill time at house. Whereas the boys performed, Ryan and I carved out a while to do a few hours of Alaska trip analysis and planning. Again within the fall after we initially started planning, we have been pretty constructive we have been going the cruise route however, truthfully, it was emails from a couple of of YOU that inspired us to pivot our plans. We’re attempting to be cognizant of planning a visit our children will actually get pleasure from and let go of any self-imposed stress to “see all of the issues” whereas we’re there. If we are able to see whales, bald eagles and be collectively, we’ll be thrilled! That is actually a bucket record journey for our household and I can’t wait! Seeing whales within the wild has been a dream of mine for my whole life.
After lunch, we piled into the automotive and took the boys out of the home for some playtime at Discovery Place Children.
We’ve been members of this native kids’s museum since Chase was a child and by some means it has by no means misplaced its luster for our boys. They spent about 90 minutes working round till we observed the solar was lastly popping out! We shortly made our means house and spent some much-needed time exterior. Ryan and I each stated lastly seeing the solar after every week straight of rain felt amazinggg. Pepper was particularly peppy!
The boys are completely loving the dust bikes they obtained for Christmas (undoubtedly their favourite present this yr) and watching them fly in every single place on trails collectively makes us smile so large. They’re positively of their ingredient doing one thing quick and outdoors collectively!
(Try Rhett’s mud-covered again within the above photograph. Is that this the 4-year-old dust bike version of a blow out?!)
As soon as we made it house, Ryan dealt with the boys’ dinner and night routine whereas I headed out to fulfill up with my girlfriends for our annual Galentine’s Favourite Issues evening!
It’s certainly one of our favourite annual traditions (you possibly can learn all about how we plan it together with some gifting suggestions right here: Favourite Issues) and it’s all the time so enjoyable to open enjoyable little surprises and listen to extra about why every particular person selected the present(s) they selected.
This yr my favourite issues included Skoy non-scratching dish scrubbers (three of us had these in our present luggage — they’re wonderful, I’m telling you!), a cute pair of socks and the Gorjana necklace I haven’t taken off since my dad and mom gave it to me for my birthday final yr.
I LOVE the necklace so, a lot and the standard is wonderful. (I put on it once I work out, bathe, and so on. and it nonetheless seems model new.) Anyway, the backstory on this Favourite Issues present is somewhat loopy… Again in December, I went to the Gorjana web site to attempt to order the identical necklace for my sister for Christmas however they have been all offered out. Some web deep diving led me to search out the identical $75 necklace on TJMaxx.com for under $12.99! I scooped up a bunch (sufficient for my sister, for our favourite issues change and two extra for further items) and was thrilled!! TJMaxx has the unique worth mistaken (it says $18 however when the necklaces arrived, the unique tag says $75 and it’s positively the identical necklace as mine) so it was a steal of a discover!! (Simply beware the clasp is somewhat tough nad I wanted to observe this video to determine it out. Sure actually.)
As for the items my girlfriends introduced as their favourite issues this yr, there have been a whole lot of enjoyable finds together with darkish chocolate, a favourite mug, a 30-day peace prayer journal, cherry blossom tea, a tote bag, a puffy pink beauty bag, hair ties that appear like bracelets in your wrist, Kosas plumping lip oil, automotive seat headrest hooks (I’m so excited for these for our boys’ backpacks!), a exercise headband, a automotive visor sun shades clip, Hairitage texturizing powder and hair rollers.
It was additionally enjoyable to speak about previous favourite issues we’ve exchanged which have turn into favourite issues amongst our whole group! A number of that got here up: Collapsible storage tote (I take advantage of mine to retailer our boys’ costumes), TUL gel pens (they write like a dream), electrical lighter (you already know I’m obsessed) and eyelash primer mascara (it makes such a distinction for fuller, longer lashes).
By the point I arrived house, Rhett was in mattress however I joined Ryan to tuck within the large youngsters after which we headed to mattress to learn till we each may now not maintain our eyes open.
As for as we speak, it will likely be a full however enjoyable one with the boys out of college. We’ve plans to make it to Burn Boot Camp, hit up a neighborhood play place and take the dust bikes out with Pepper once more. I hope you all have an ideal day and, for these of you off from faculty and work for President’s Day as we speak, I hope you’re having fun with your further lengthy weekend!
