February Love

I say it every year, but I really do LOVE February! I love red and pink and hearts and love. :) I was happy that our Valentine mailboxes made it though their year of storage and have made a triumphant reappearance. I noticed them in the Target dollar bins again this past week (in red, white, AND pink!), so I decided to snatch up a few extras, in case any of mine need replacing and because next year our little girl on the way will need one too! I love that our family is still growing. :)





The girls have already been hard at work the past couple days making Valentines. They spend at least 30 minutes to an hour every day crafting up a storm, cutting, and gluing, and writing love notes to each of their family members. I've been throwing in some love as well... usually in the form of a piece of chocolate or something. Every night after dinner (and after girls are in jammies and have cleaned their room... I have to use any incentive I can to get them to do those things), we all open our mailboxes and enjoy our Valentine surprises from the day. All the Valentines go up on the fridge, and by Valentines Day we have quite a pretty red, white, and pink collage to look at. :) I love to see traditions take shape, and I hope that this one will stick around a while.


Since it's the month of love (I like to say love in a sultry kind of way... haha), I really liked this idea posted about HERE as a way to encourage kids to show kindness to each other and serve within their family. So, we're going to give it try! I imagine this is going to take quite an effort on my part to consistently remind the girls to do kind deeds for others... but hopefully these "heart strings" will be a fun motivator as well. Read the linked post for more details, but we'll be stringing on felt hearts for each kind deed that is done - I'd like to do this for the entire month of February and see how many heart strings we can fill up!



Our sad, empty heart string hanging from the china hutch... I feel like telling the kids, "quick! do something nice for each other so we can fill it up with hearts and make it cute!".

Speaking of cute...



Oh, and today was Groundhog's Day! Phil, the groundhog, says an early spring is on its way. A stat I ready today said that the groundhog is correct 39% of the time. Not impressive Mr. Groundhog... you'd think you could get it right at least HALF of the time. haha. As with Dangerfield tradition, we had breakfast for dinner to celebrate - with sausage... ground hog. You get it right? Well, I think it's funny.


And one last thing... we tried out Bountiful Baskets on Saturday for the first time. I was happy with the loot that Ben brought home from the pick up. I ate the strawberries and one of the cantelopes that first day... yum! We've been chipping away at the tomatoes and cucumbers in salads most nights, and I was feeling domestic to have chopped up my own big stalk of broccoli... I steamed them and they cooked up FAST and it was good! Better than the steamfresh bags of broccoli I normally buy, and most definitely cheaper. And it wasn't very hard either. I've always been intimidated by broccoli before now. So, I think I'll like doing this produce co-op every couple weeks... it gets me more familiar with cooking and preparing different veggies and fruits and we end up eating a much larger variety of it all as well.

100 Days, Chores, and Movie Night

Emma's 100th day of school was on Monday - the teacher requested that each student bring in 100 of something. Somewhat inspired by the Fancy Nancy 100th day of school book, we made a poster - 25 beads of 4 different colors to make a rainbow of 100 beads. Emma did all the counting with me as we made it and she chose the colors. I did a lot of hot gluing...



We have had many a chore system in our home, and from this I've learned that they need to be changed up often to keep the kids excited - and especially as the kids get older, their abilities to help out around the house are constantly growing - which is very exciting to me! Our latest chore system is pretty simple... this one was all Ben's idea. Each girl has 2 chores they do every day, 3 chores they do once during the week, and then a list of extra chores they can pick from. We're just doing this Monday-Friday. I know a lot of families do their heavy chore days on Saturdays, but for now I have a much easier time motivating the kids to work on school days than I do on our fun weekends when daddy is home to play. So, on Friday, the girls just need to have 15 points to participate in Family Movie Night! For now, that's the big reward for working throughout the week. The last few weeks we've watched How to Train your Dragon, Despicable Me, Nanny McPhee Returns, and last night we watched Shrek 4 (holy cow... why did they make FOUR Shrek movies?!). I think I'd like to have a little treat jar too, so for each point they receive above the 15 point goal, they can pick out little pieces of candies to have during our movie as well. Just to motivate them to do more than what's required, if they feel so inclined. :)

I've printed these out (and saved the file, of course, so I can easily change up the chores on the lists when needed), put them in sheet protectors and put them on the fridge where the girls can easily see them. We're using a dry erase marker throughout the week and then they can be wiped clean for the next Monday.

We're having the girls trade off each week picking a dessert to have during our movie night. Becca picked chocolate chip cookies for last night... always yummy.

I remembered that my brother showed me how easy it is to pop your own popcorn in a saucepan on the stove. It's starting to make me wonder why we all think we need popcorn poppers. So, if you don't have a popcorn popper - just buy a bag of popcorn kernels from the grocery store and on the back of the bag it gives instructions for popping popcorn on the stove. It took less than 5 minutes to pop plenty for all of us! We melted a couple tablespoons of butter to pour on and sprinkled on a small amount of salt... yum! We usually do microwave bags of popcorn, and this was definitely better - and much cheaper - oh, and more fun! So there's my tip for the day. haha

Golf, Park, and Citrus

The post title pretty well sums it all up, so I guess you can stop reading now- but proceed if you would like...

Saturday was a really great day - in the morning we took the girls to a golf clinic at a nearby park. It was FREE and put on by the Junior Golf Association of Arizona... they called it the Itty Bitty Open - how cute is that?! We just had to register the kids ahead of time, and both girls got a free little set of plastic golf clubs and a visor. :) They were thrilled! Emma did just get real golf clubs for Christmas, but they specifically requested that kids do not bring their own clubs. Becca was thrilled to get to be involved with a golf outing with daddy this time around. They had a pro golfer there to give the kids a little class on the different types of clubs and what they are used for, and how to hold a golf club. Then everyone got to go out on the make shift 9-hole course and practice. I was proud of the girls for doing so well! They tried their best through all 9 holes, without getting frustrated. Emma was actually pretty good and hits the ball 95 percent of the time that she swings. Pretty sure that's more successful than her mommy would be. haha.









Daddy got to be the caddy



After the golfing, we went to Olive Garden for lunch, thanks to the gift card we got from my brother for Christmas. Thanks Aaron! In the early evening, before dinner, we decided to take a walk to one of the little parks nearby. I love doing simple outings with my little family. We really love hanging out all together! I guess that's a really good thing, cause we're kind of stuck with each other. :)




Ben is so fun with the kids... he is always quick to jump in and play with them - he even tried to teach Emma the fine art of jumping off a swing. :)




The sunset was really pretty as we walked back home... and the girls (and Ben) wanted to climb on the big rocks... made for some rather dramatic pictures.



On a side note- for Relief Society this week we had a service auction. One of the things I ended up getting to take home from it was a beautiful, big basket of citrus from one of the cute girls in our ward's backyard. We've been getting creative this week trying to eat a ton of oranges, lemons, and grapefruits. In addition to just eating the oranges on their own, Ben also made some orange sherbet - it turned out really yummy... much like an Orange Julius in frozen form. We also made a big pitcher of lemonade, and I'm trying to get the energy to make a batch of orange rolls. I'm planning on making this recipe from Pioneer Woman. Here's hoping they turn out delicious!

Enjoying the weather and good food!

I love 3-day weekends! I love it because it means one more day I don't have to get kids all up and ready for school. :) Granted, it's nice having kids out of the house on school days, but sometimes, I'd rather just take our time a bit in the morning and hang out together all day. On Friday night we ate out with Ben's family at Lo Lo's Chicken and Waffles. Ben's brother Peter has been telling us how great it is for a while... and we've been becoming rather familiar with chicken and waffles in the past couple years, by making our own at home... but it was fun to go out to eat at a place that specializes in chicken and waffles! It was delicious. And I also ate grits and tried a bit of fried okra! It was quite the experience!

On Saturday, we used our new Phoenix Zoo membership for the first time. Ben's sister and their family got it for us for Christmas... so nice!! I intend to fully enjoy using it plenty this year. We spent almost 4 hours there this weekend... the weather was awesome! It's been in the mid-70's this week, so we weren't pushed out by the heat.







They have what they call "The Polar Slide" at the zoo right now, so Emma used her own money (earned from her grandma for reading her first Magic Tree House book!) to pay to go on it... Ben rode on it too on the slide next to hers. It's supposed to be like sledding, but without snow! :)



And a video... I like Emma's little screams...












Jake LOVED petting the goats (this was his first time)... Becca was nervous, but finally tried it. :)











Jake mid sand-throw - naughty, naughty



Emma is a monkey... and has been since she was a baby

They have this crazy cactus slide over by the koalas - and as you can see in the pictures, there is quite a large drop between the end of the bottom of the slide and the ground. So, the kids kept flying out of the slide and landing on their face, bum, back, etc. It was funny really :) But Ben decided to assist them as they came out - which was also funny...





Oh, how I relate to the kangaroo... I often feel like a mother roo with all my babies in my little pouch... haha






Since Emma got to do the Polar Slide, Jake and Becca were appeased by riding the carousel at the end of our zoo visit. It's always a pleaser!





See my belly? It's big. And I'm carrying high as I always do :)

On Sunday night we grilled - I LOVE it when we grill... because it means Ben does all the work and I just get to eat yummy food. We had grilled chicken (which Ben butchered himself - per Alton Brown instructions - and then brined and seasoned), with grilled vegetables, and a salad. It was all lovely.


While we were outside tending to the grill, the girls noticed all the hot air balloons up the sky. So we took a picture...



On Monday we spent some time at the local park. The girls mostly rode their bikes and Ben played basketball... I lost twice to him at PIG. bummer. Jake was all over the place... I wandered from place to place trying to keep up with him. And once again, the weather was perfect!!





Jake is a CLIMBER and even though there is a little kid playground and a big kid playground at the park we go to, he prefers the bigger one... and I don't have to help him at all - he goes down the big slides and then makes his way up to the top again. It does make me a bit nervous when he starts peering over the high sides though, but apparently not nervous enough to stop from taking a quick picture :)





Emma's gotten so good at riding her two wheeler! I'm very proud!

Since Emma's been learning how to ride her bike without training wheels, Becca often says to us, "I NEVER fall over on my bike mommy!"... not sure she realizes that she has 2 extra wheels keeping her up... haha.



On Monday night we got to eat out again with Ben's family at Pappadeaux's. It's a really fun New Orleans style seafood restaurant. Ben ordered soft shell crab and when it came out I freaked out a bit. It's ugly little crab legs were sprawled all over his plate... I thought the thing might crawl right off the table and jump on my face. icky. I can only handle seafood if it's cut into a nice fillet. :) Here's the kids hanging out outside the restaurant...