sweet Valentine

pink heart shaped pancakes

Kinda nice to have Valentine's Day fall on a 3 day weekend this year.  Combine that with no snow in Tahoe, and we had no desire to head out of town.  But we celebrated in style at home!

the kids each got a book for Valentine's Day -- with an audio CD attached, they are loving listening to books on CD

but maybe the cards were more of the favorite gift?

and maybe we let them have a few M&M's after breakfast….

we got some new furniture delivered that morning, and the kids were more than excited to watch the truck

 A few days earlier, Kaitlyn had a party at Stepping Stones -- with cupcake decorating and passing out Valentines to the other kids.  Super cute!  And Ryan had his party at school on Friday.  He was MORE than excited to hand out his Spider Man Valentines this year -- he wrote his classmates' names on each and every one.

Auntie Dana threw a special little Valentine Party for the kiddos on the 14th.  Complete with arts and crafts, heart shaped pizzas, and lots of running around.  They had a blast Dana!  Thank you!  (Eddy and I got to escape and take a long bike ride in the glorious 70 degree weather, a great treat for us too!)

We all went for Frozen Yogurt after the party...

good til the last drop 

I love these two!

birthdays and stuff

I don't really know where the last few weeks have gone.  But here are a few random shots of things we've been up to.
First up…my birthday.  Mid 30s, mid week.  Not really all that much to write home about.  I went to work all day, and then Eddy made a fabulous dinner for the two of us, and cooked the kids up something even more delicious for their taste buds -- they ate early, we ate later.  We all enjoyed some cake.  And the kids helped me open my gifts.  All in all, a great small celebration of my day.

selfie via timer mode on Eddy's phone -- guaranteed smiles on the kiddos faces

Silly faces...

trying on wigs at Nanny's house, in the dress up box from when I was a kid.  Wonder if there were any moths in there?

Pirate Day at school -- Ry was so ready

 We took the kids out for sushi.  Correction, Eddy and I ate delicious sushi, the kids ate edamame beans and potstickers -- and loooooooved playing with their chopsticks.  We really should get them out more.

A few big changes in Kaitlyn's world in the last few weeks...

she has made the switch to Fancy Pants!  bye bye diapers!!

We figured we'd just roll with this adjustment period of potty training and convert her crib to a toddler bed as well.  She got new bedding for Christmas, so it was just a matter of time.   All of these changes have been a bit exhausting -- I'm still not sure if she was quite ready for potty training, but she started to throw some serious fits about wearing a diaper so we thought we'd give it a go.  She's younger than Ry was by a few months, but she has the ability to hold her bladder like a camel -- so it's been mostly good, but I still don't trust her to let us know when she needs to go, so we're not quite settled in to the good, diaper free life yet.  And her new free reign of her bedroom has meant some early early wake up calls in the morning and some nap strikes.  But I know, as with all things, we will get thru this storm! :)

And some other stuff...

double fisting at Ry's soccer practice

 We did finally get to use our Christmas rain gear last week, after a looooong dry month of January.

that's our house in the background

And we managed to get ourselves down to Dana's school in Hayward for their annual Crab Feed fundraiser dinner.  It was our first crab of the season, and it was delicious.  Always fun digging in to good grub in the school gymnasium! Even more fun to catch up with Eddy's Aunties and Uncles.

Auntie Judy and Eddy -- sporting their bibs with pride