Hearts and Candy

My 4 little Valentines...




So I seem to be on an every 2 week blogging schedule lately... which is resulting in long posts. Over the past 2 weeks, we've been keeping busy with lots of Valentines fun and family activities.

At the beginning(ish) of the month we pulled out the red mailboxes. I thought ahead a while back and bought extra mailboxes for future little Dangerfield's (how hopeful of me!) - This was Claire's first Valentines, so I got to add another mailbox to the row. I had to get creative typing up her little name for her box - I no longer had the font I used to make the others years back, so I did my best to make it fit in with the rest. :)




The kids got right to work making some Valentines...




We took another trip to a nearby park - this time Becca and Jake rode their bikes. Jake got a bigger bike at Christmas. Just recently he figured out how to use it :)




We had a late night this past week making Valentines for the girls' classes. Ben was working late, so it ended up turning into a pretty fun girls night being crafty. We turned on some music and we went back and forth between painting and dancing. :) It's fun having girls!








Ben had the morning off of work this past Saturday, so we spent it cleaning our house and then playing at the park. Ben is the most fun daddy and really plays with the kids...








That evening, Ben sadly had to go to work, while I got to go play! It would have been even better if Ben could have come, but it was still nice to get a sitter and meet up with Ben's family downtown for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir concert. We went out to dinner first and then headed to the performance. They were amazing! They sang such a wide variety of songs (not just church stuff!), and it was a great evening out...


We did a fun little colored heart activity this week. I've been finding that the time I spend sitting feeding Claire is great for thinking up activities to do with the kids. I brainstormed as I sat in the rocker feeding Claire bear. I don't have a whole lot of materials to work with in my house right now, but I knew I had construction paper... so I finished feeding Claire and then cut out some big hearts of various colors and taped them to the coffee table. I gave the boys each a little stack of small hearts and they matched them up to the big hearts. Then we turned on some music and they marched around the table and stopped when the music did, touched the heart closest to them and told me the color. Blaine and Jake are a year apart, so they are definitely at different stages in what they know, but they both really enjoyed this!




Claire was so excited to stand up the table later and find big colorful hearts to bat at. :)




Becca got home from preschool later and enjoyed her little stash of Valentines goodies...


Valentines Day

I love having a day full of activities on holidays- as a stay-at-home mommy, the routine days get boring if they aren't mixed up with something different every once and while...

Pink heart shaped pancakes, strawberries, and pink fruit smoothies for breakfast (Ben didn't have to go to work till later in the day on Tuesday, so he made us Valentines breakfast) - yum...


We made red playdough and the kids played with it for quite a while...




Lunch- the heart shaped cookie cutter was put to good use today, along with the multiple packages of strawberries...


Valentines Coloring...




Jake actually seems to like to color lately! The last few times we've done coloring activities, he's stayed in one place and colored thoroughly with multiple colors - in the past, he would just scribble one little section and then be done and run off. I'm so proud of him! He's growing up and his attention span is growing too!


When Emma got home from school, she dumped her Valentines all over the kitchen table and Becca got hers out again too - they swapped treats and picked some things out for Jake and Claire. Claire loved eating suckers so much, she ended up needing a change of clothes :)




My mother-in-law got me this cute red heart baking pan as a Valentines gift - I wanted to cook something in it, so I settled on a giant chocolate chip cookie! :) As if we weren't already having enough sweets. It was delicious. And it was perfect to eat with our cute milk with hearts...






Ben got home later and brought the kids daddy valentines in the form of cupcakes! Who needs dinner right?


Claire LOVED eating cupcake - it was like a little pre-one-year-old-birthday activity. In case there was any doubt before, Claire officially loves cake. :)


Ben and I were quick to get the kids to bed and we did a little Valentines dinner for ourselves at home. We thought of Sedona as our Valentines splurge and couples time, but we didn't want to ignore actual Valentines day, so we had a simple but delicious dinner planned out and Ben brought home a redbox movie - Midnight in Paris (great movie!!). We ate our dinner in courses, going back and forth between cooking, and watching our movie, and eating by candle light. It's so fun! I recommend it! :)

Some other pics...

My pretty Valentines tulips from my sweetie

Our Valentine collage on the fridge

Jake has been working on being nice to Blaine (the little boy I babysit) - he's had a hard time being willing to share his toys and his room. So, ANY time he speaks in a nice voice, shares, plays politely, etc, he gets a couple marbles in his jar. It's been a surprisingly helpful motivator. When he fills his 'Jake is nice' jar, he gets to pick a dollar prize from Target. I love my Jake, especially when he's nice :)
Emma sends you love - Happy Valentines Day! - mwa!

Sedona!

We had the BEST overnight adventure in Sedona this weekend! Ben's parents were so nice to watch all our kids on Friday night, so Ben and I decided this would be a great way to celebrate our Valentines a little early. Since we knew we would be childless, we were sure to pick out a nice hotel. We don't do this type of thing very often - we've gotten away from the kids overnight only a few times since getting married - someday we hope to be able to do it more often! :) Once we got into Sedona on Friday night, we checked into our hotel and then decided to just eat dinner at the restaurant there, since it looked nice, and we didn't really want to get back in the car to go somewhere else. Our dinner was delicious, especially dessert! :) Then we hot tubbed - which we debated doing at all - it was COLD outside. Not Utah cold, but about 20 degrees colder than Phoenix, so it felt like winter to me (we even had to scrape ice off our windshield the next morning... brrr). But I convinced Ben it would be worth it walking outside in our swimsuits, 'cause the hot tub would be nice and warm. :)

Saturday morning was race day! I was NERVOUS. I don't know why I was so nervous - this was my 3rd half-marathon, but I was definitely nervous, and the really chilly morning wasn't helping! Here's me BEFORE the race...


The race was HARD- harder than I was expecting. I knew it would be hilly, but I also thought there would be at least some flat parts too, but there was mostly just hill after hill, and the hills were big and steep. The downhills were great though! :) Anyway, I had a rough time after mile 5 - I haven't had asthma trouble in a couple of year, but I could not get a full breath in during parts, which made it doubly hard. So, I felt rather defeated during sections, and walked a bit a couple times. But I thought of my cute Ben waiting for me at the finish, and I made myself start up running again and plugged away at the distance. In the end, I finished - I was disappointed at my time, because I had high hopes to do much better - but the scenery during the run was amazing, and it was awesome to be a part of such a great race...

Here I come down the hill on the final stretch...






So, Ben was going to run the race with me originally, but about half way into the training program, he injured his knee - it's mostly healed now, but too late for finishing training and actually running the race. We hope to someday soon, actually run a substantial race together though! When Ben ran the Lake Havasu Half last year, I was pregnant, so we just don't seem to be on the same schedule. :)

After the race, we went back to the hotel to get ready and checked out, and then we went to lunch in downtown Sedona and explore a few of their eclectic shops. :) Our favorite shop was this one... it had all sorts of awesome pottery, plants, and antiques...






Goodbye Sedona! Our stay was short, but a fun adventure!

Our day to day activities...

We've been keeping very busy with at home activities and lots of park outings recently. I'm still rather intimidated to do any sort of extensive outing since starting babysitting, so we've been mostly utilizing the nearby parks as our way to get out of the house - but hoping to get more adventurous soon! The kids have also been finding themselves enjoying the backyard...


Preschool Time- chocolate chip cookie counting...


Chores!...


Claire enjoying the park, while chewing on some receipts :)






Preschool Time - shapes!...


January craft - paper tube stamped snowmen. I refrained from helping the kids at all with this - sometimes it's nice to just let them go at it, without any care as how they will look in the end. I should have taken a picture of the finished product, 'cause they were pretty amusing. Jake's snowman looked like it was throwing up yellow snow. ;)

Becca and Emma took the project pretty seriously...




Jake, on the other hand, quickly moved on from painting a snowman, to painting his paper tube...


Claire sat nicely in her hairchair observing. She really is such a sweetie...




Emma participated in their school fun run last Friday afternoon - she really loves running!...


Preschool time- sink and float...




More park time - we've been park hopping recently and trying out some new ones... this one had swings - and Claire got her FIRST swing experience! She absolutely loved it...




Claire has started making this funny face sometimes when I feed her - it doesn't seem to matter what food it is - I don't think it's an "I don't like it" face, because she happily continues to open up her mouth and doesn't spit it out - so I don't know what she's doing it for... but it makes me laugh...

Chinese New Year!

In case you can't tell, we are not Chinese... but we LOVE to do some Chinese New Year celebrating. We wore red all day for good luck, did a little craft, and explored the Chinese Cultural Center festival.

This craft idea caught my eye from this site. Jake participated too, but I was too busy keeping him from painting his face to be able to take a picture of him. :) I definitely didn't have any chinese newspaper lying around, so I just printed a chinese newspaper page from a google search and then we cut it apart to look like a skyline...






We met up with Grandma and Grandpa Dangerfield and Pete, Lacy, and Scout at the Chinese Cultural Center for the Chinese New Year festival...

It made me laugh when I noticed that Jake was plugging his ears... they were sitting close to the speakers and music was quite loud while the girl was dancing

Exploring the booths, checking out some fun fans

At one of the booths, a man was showing people some chinese writing and explaining a bit about the different tones used when speaking... it seems SO complicated but the writing is so beautiful





The crew with their souvenirs

My sweet and silly 8 month old

Claire turned 8 months old on the 16th of January (I'm so behind!). Within the past few weeks she's developed quite the silly personality. She discovered she loves to suck on her bottom lip and make squinty eyed faces, in addition to sticking out her tongue. She's also been learning new skills! She can now pull herself up to stand on her own (at a table or couch), and can say mama! Claire is as sweet as ever, is a champ at sleeping and sticking to her nap schedule, and loves to be involved with the other kids activities. She's growing in her hair a little more, and it's turning out to be quite red! It reminds me of Emma's hair... I'm really loving it!