v-day catch-up

i have a great little family.

and they're cute too.

rather than chris and i both taking ellie out for a special birthday dinner this year, chris thought it would be fun to take ellie on a special daddy-ellie date. this little miss was beside herself! when i told her the exciting news, at 10 am the morning of, she ran and picked out a special dress and put on some glitter lipgloss she got for her birthday. then she came up to me and asked if i could put her hair in a bun, because "daddy likes my bun!". we waited until closer to their departure, 4 pm, and she got all spiffied up with some of mama's make-up. she was so excited for her date!

she wanted to go to "puh-neeeeeeras" (panera) for some yummy mac n cheese. good choice, ellie bean! 

afterwards, chris surprised her with a trip to get some ice cream at yogurt mountain. 

what a lucky girl. and what a great papa.

on to some valentine's day goodness!

jack had a fantastic party at school. he still is enjoying all the candy. it was practically halloween!

ellie also had a great valentine's day party at preschool this year hosted by miss carolina. they played a really fun game. they each had to pick a heart, read the letter on the heart, then run it across the house and match it up on a poster board. when all the hearts were in place, it spelled a special message. ellie loved it!

these 5 kiddos amazed me with how well they know their letters. smart cookies!

they had some great snacks and even decorated sugar cookies.

 then they passed out valentines to each other and ellie could. not. stop. saying how much she loved each kid the whole car ride home!

i had a lot of fun with the kids valentine's! this was the first year we have ever really done them, so i took full advantage of jack not knowing what was available at the store. i.e. transformers or captain america. but now that he knows, i will let him do what he wants next year ;)

this last picture is totally crappy, but you can get an idea of how the finished valentine looked. i got the idea from grosgrainfabulous.blogspot.com

 they turned out pretty darn cute, if i say so myself!

we met up with lari and the kids at the park to launch some rockets with grandma and grandpa. this was the only picture we took, but i thought it was a perfect picture to show how well larissa is balancing this mom of three thing!

one last valentine's day treat. this is the last one, i promise!

before the month began i took about an hour to make up a bunch of little valentines notes for jack and ellie. they were super cheesy, had a sticker on them, and were really simple. then, each morning leading up to valentines day i would put one of the little love notes in a special box for them. they looked forward to it each morning and would be pretty sad if i forgot... not that i forgot... very often... :) we will definitely make this a tradition each year. the last couple days i added a little gift from the dollar section at target like a bath fizzie or a notepad. they sure enjoyed it and it was good to let them know how much i love them.