V-day, Robert's 10th B-day, Our 12th Anniversary

This week will be a crazy week for the rest of my life, and this year was no different! But, I did the best I could doing, basically a party, every other day of this week.

Here is Valentines....For breakfast I made pink, heart shaped cinnamon rolls.
Here are the kid's Valentine's.
The ones for Rob and I. Rob also got me a dozen red roses and a running GPS watch :). He also did really cute Valentines he made on the computer and then door bell ditched to make it fun for the kids. This is how I did Isabelle's hair for Valentine's.

Auntie Robyn and her kids sent us fun Valentine's with mustaches and suckers that the kids loved.Talia had fun coloring the walls on Valentine's day. She is too much like her mother!Luckily for dinner all we had was heart shaped Papa Murphy's pizza and some salad with red dressing.For dessert, I made Marbled Red Velvet Cheesecake Brownies I found on pinterest.

For Robert's birthday here are his presents.Now Robert and Talia match with their hot chocolate shirts.
I did my best with a Phineas and Ferb cake for Robert.We did a really small party. His best friend moved last week.For History this week I had the kids go on the "Silk Road" like Marco Polo, through our house. Each city, desert etc was labeled. In the play room, I had the couch set up like a little market stand with things to buy. Isabelle thought it was beautiful and asked if she could sleep there a couple of nights in a row.For our Anniversary, I got 12 balloons and printed a picture and memory from each year of marriage and put it on the balloons ( I also got this idea from pinterest). Also, I had gotten a jacket for Rob a while ago, but he never wore it because the sleeves were too long. So, I had the sleeves adjusted for our anniversary.
Rob got me a new pencil sharpener for homeschool! This may not sound romantic to you, but I was so excited!

This was our dinner- cordon bleu, asparagus, plum bread, and rice.The dessert I made was such a pain! It took over two hours to make. I made individual triple chocolate mousse cakes. I don't know if I will ever make it again, but it did taste very yummy! The top layer was not suppose to be drippy like this. Oh well, at least it tasted good!

Austin's Cowboy Party -age 5

Austin has never had a super nice birthday, since it always seems to be a crazy month for me. (Talia being born, Robert's birthday and baptism, Valentines, our anniversary.) So, this year I decided it was Austin's turn to have a nice party. We did a cowboy theme of course!
This was his invitation.

He told me he NEEDED a mustache to be a real cowboy.This is the front of our house. Our neighbors were so sweet to let us borrow all of the cowboy duds and bales of hay for the party.This is the kitchen.First we had the kids decorate "cowboy vests" tracing boots, hats, etc.
Next we did a relay race with stick horses. They had to ride the stick horse to me, put on some cowboy clothes, .....Next we played the "Snake in my Boot" game. The kids had plastic snakes and tried to toss them into the boots.We also played pass the rattlesnake. It was basically hot potato, but we said if you were holding the snake when the music stopped he bit you!We played musical chairs.And then they had a treasure hunt to find the presents all over the house.He wanted a bright red cowboy boot for his cake. It took so much dye!! But, he was happy :)
This is his best buddy from preschool Garrett "The Carrot". He tells us all the time he drives to school in a carrot car. He is so silly. He was so excited that Garrett could come!
Woody and Jessie also made it to the party!

Talia turns 2, homeschool, and more

Yes, my little Talia Actually turned two on February 3. I can't believe it! She is such a fun kid. She talks up a storm and always tries to sound so big! She is talking very well in complete sentences. She jumps up off the floor with two feet all the time. She loves jumping on the tramp with the other kids. She loves baby dolls. She loves playing with dishes, and making huge messes. We had stopped that for a little while by putting child locks on all that she could reach, but now she has learned to bring stools over to whatever she can't reach. She has also learned to open doors.
This was her cake. She wanted a princess cake. Luckily Isabelle is very sweet and willing to share her things with Talia.

Here is Talia opening presents.


We did things pretty simple this year for her. I thinks she was pretty happy on her birthday.


This is Robert with his best friend Brittan at Brittan's baptism. Brittan just moved to Arizona this weekend, so we were very sad, but so grateful Robert got to have such a wonderful friend.For homeschool this week we studied Gengis Kahn. We made Chinese lanterns, watched Mulan, and had Chinese peanut chicken for dinner. So fun!Rob took the girls to a father daughter dance for our annual Valentine's "kid date". It sounds like everyone had a great time (although getting our the door with Talia was a bit tricky that night). Talia found a friend at the dance and played with her a ton!