Valentine's Day

Heart-shaped candies and cookies, pretty cards, flowers and lots of xoxoxoxo….no wonder Valentine’s is a favorite! Well let me tell you how lucky I am! Every Day for me is a Valentine’s Day! Every day of my life with Dirk is filled with LOVE incomparable to anything I have ever had or felt…so who needs to celebrate Valentine’s Day when in fact all you need to do each day is wake up and WAHLAH...HAPPINESS, LOVE and AFFECTION!

I have a funny story to share about the girls. It seems Valentines Day has changed over the years. When I was young we would give the usual valentine cards to our classmates but this usually didn’t cover our close knit group of friends. So we would include in our count a card for each of them and after school my mom would run us around and we would put the card on the doorstep, knock on the door or ring the doorbell and run as fast as we could. We did this to everyone on our list including our siblings. It seemed our doorbell alone rang for a couple hours straight. My mom even joined in on the fun. I should have carried on this tradition but for some reason I didn’t. So this year I thought it to be never too late to start! Wrong!! We were going about our usual evening routine of homework, dinner, and baths when I decided to slip out the back door with my goodies. I laid them out on the porch, knocked on the door and ran around the corner of the house waiting…I could hear them running around but no one came to the door so I knocked again. This time I could hear Jauncee getting upset. I waited a bit longer then knocked again and headed for the back door…but it was locked! What!?! The girls locked me out! Well I don’t think they locked me out just the person knocking on the door. Finally they saw me out the window in front and let me in. Not sure if this “new” tradition is going to be a good idea. It was all kind of funny. They were both mad at me for a bit but it didn’t last too long.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

JAN - U - AR - Y

Excited for a new year with new opportunities!

JANUARY is the one time that I look forward and backwards at the same time. I reflect on events of the previous year and resolve to improve some aspect of my daily life and personal philosophy. Cast out the old and in with the new! The shortest day has past, and whatever nastiness of weather we may look forward to at least I know the days are getting longer. Minute by minute they lengthen out.

January proved to be a month full of cold weather and snow but that didn’t stop us from getting out and enjoying the winter!

We also enjoyed the wintry bliss from inside our cozy little home. Something I am thankful for this time of year!

Jauncee and Clay Boy had fun strolling around the house! I think this activity eventually put him to sleep. It must have been due to him laughing so hard in the beginning!

And yes, we still had our tree up in January!

Jauncee loves Clay and is so much help with him when she gets home from school. She can entertain Clay for quite awhile. We love our Jauncee!

January also brought our first sleigh ride of the season.

Sure glad Santa brought Clay a snowsuit so he could get in on the fun. He was fascinated by the ride and eventually it rocked him to sleep too!

Silly Jauncee!

Every night before I go to bed I give my sleeping angels one more kiss and fix covers if needed. To my surprise on a school night this is how I found Jauncee. I guess she didn’t think I was serious about it being bedtime! Of course I had to take a picture and tease her about it the next morning! She blamed it all on me…as if I like to play tricks on her at night while she is sleeping!

My handsome little boy that is always smiling but I never seem to be able to capture it on camera!

January was also a month for sleepovers. They are always fun!

Sledding on the elk hide proved to be entertaining. Jes was the only one who dared in the beginning. The other girls thought it to be disgusting…Jauncee did come around!

We also enjoyed an afternoon sledding. It was so much fun and nice to get out and enjoy the fresh cool air. I went down 3 times and would have more if I thought I could have walked back up the hill some more, which was quite a hike.

Every night Clay sits up on the counter and helps me cook dinner. He keeps me company and I love it! He is such a fun little boy, he sure can jabber up a storm if he wants to. Although his time on the counter in the Bumbo is coming to an end…he seems to have figured out how to maneuver out of it if he wants to. Better to be safe than sorry.

The girls having fun entertaining themselves!

Self Portraits...something Jauncee loves to do. She loves to take pictures in general!

Our little Clay Boy also turned 5 months in January. He is so much fun and is growing like crazy. It has been such a joy to have a baby in the house and a little boy to boot! He is so loved by everyone. I also can’t believe how good of a baby he is, we are so blessed. He likes to play with anything and everything. He loves to socialize and can’t get enough of his reflection in the mirror. I love this little guy and treasure the time at home that I get with him.

I love being a wife and a mother there really is nothing greater!

We are excited for February to be here and look forward to more fun and great things yet to come!