Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day.  Not my favorite.  I hate all the pressure that comes with it.  I keep it pretty simple, though I still acknowledge it.  My kids love it, so Valentine's Day lives on.  In the morning, the kids woke up to cinnamon toast crunch for breakfast and a couple of hershey kisses.  I've spent years trying to make "special" holiday meals, and I'm always frustrated because the kids don't like it.  They won't eat crepes (I know, who are they?!), no fancy waffles (fruit, etc), no cinnamon rolls, no french toast casseroles, etc.  And since I've recently banned cereal from our house (don't ask), they were pretty thrilled to see it on the table.  I also made them each a Chatbook documenting some favorite pictures from 2017.  All of them loved looking at pictures of themselves (except Reed who could care less.  He's so predictable).  The Littles and I went to Kevin's work to eat lunch with him, which doesn't happen often enough.  The kids loved that.  And then we had my mom over for a "special" dinner of steak, and ended with dessert.  Kevin and I went out the following weekend for an all day date (as part of our Christmas present from my mom who babysat our kids).  

I'm starting to have strong opinions about allowing my kids to be creative and independent, especially when it comes to school.  Reed wanted to make his own valentine's box, and he was pretty proud of the end result.  It's a wolf den if you can't tell.  He drew wolves and cut them out and glued it on the box.  The valentines were supposed to fit in the can and go through a hole in the box.  It's a fine line to figure out how much to allow my kids to just do on their own but also risk a chance of possible embarrassment or failure.  I think the best lessons are learned when we fail, but I can attest to the fact that it is really hard to see your kids fail and be so distraught (remember last year's pinewood derby?).  Regardless, he was happy with his box and he did it all by himself.

Heart attacking Daddy's car at work.  Corbin and MJ thought it was awesome.

One too many fun dips.