Valentine Day Surprise

I am so proud of myself to have completely surprised Victor for Valentine's Day!  I told him my mom only had 1.5 hours Thursday night for us to rush to dinner & back so we got all dressed up & went out to eat.  Then when we got done eating I told him I had a quick surprise activity by Rexburg.  He didn't know until we were 10 miles past Rexburg that we were really going up to the cabin for a night all to OURSELVES!  It was so beautiful up there.  It was our best date in YEARS!  

 We were excited to sleep in the next morning & not have any little hands pulling on us, but we both were wide awake at 7am so we got up early anyway!  It snowed all day long, big huge beautiful flakes.  We went on a 2 hour walk & saw fresh moose tracks so Vic made us chase down the tracks for a ways.  The tracks finally jumped into the forest & I was relieved that we didn't find the moose, Vic however, was disappointed! Just seeing a picture of us without kids makes me feel young again! :)

 My mom & Mark were supposed to bring the kids up at noon for lunch, but they didn't realize how hard it was to get the kids dressed & loaded so they didn't make it up until 3pm!  The kids were starving & loved up these cute pink valentine pancakes we made them.

 Tucker got little hearts.  As you can tell, he was pretty excited about it.  ;)

 Both my mom & I did little presents so we had lots to open!  I got my wedding ring re-plated & it looks so shiny & new, I love it!

 Silly lip whistles... even Tucker was trying to blow. It was cute.

Victor & Tommy got their first cross country skiing experience.

 Tommy LOVED it & was quite the natural little skier.

 He would zoom ahead of us & was a really good sport about untangling his feet & getting back up when he fell down.

 Whitney tried too, but she didn't last very long.

 Later Vic decided to jump off the balcony... 

 ...and Tommy thought that looked like fun so he asked to jump off too.  Of course Vic was happy to throw him over board.

 Zoom in to see exactly what Tommy thought of this jump!

(not too happy!) He landed & said "that was hard!  Why is it hard?!"

 Tommy & Vic stayed out digging tunnels all they way up until our late dinner!

 We had pink noodle chicken cacciatore, pink jell-o, pink cupcakes w/ hearts, & mom even made a pink cheese sauce for the cauliflower!

This definitely topped last year's Valentines Day when I was 9+ months prego & getting ready to be induced the next morning!  ....it was the best Valentine's Day we've had in years thanks to Mom & Mark helping out with my surprise & the kids! :) :) :)

Toddler Valentine Party

Whitney & Tommy LOVE parties... (and I might just like them too!) ...so I threw them a toddler Valentine Party.  They were SO excited.  They kept asking if it was their party day for 4 days straight.

 We played lots of games: Pin the heart on the big heart,

 Bounce the ball into the valentine clown's mouth,

 Race to get all of your pillow hearts in the basket first,

Even the 2 year old kids did great!

 After they won, they got to punch out a prize.  

The ones with hearts had girl prizes & the plain ones had boy prizes.

Then they played musical hearts for a cake walk.

I think this was Whitney's favorite game.  Tommy really liked it too, but he really likes competition so he had fun doing the heart toss. 

 After cupcakes, they got to decorate heart sugar cookies.... just wanted to make sure they got enough sugar in for the morning!

 And finally, they swapped valentine cards at the end.  Will & Sam were able to stay all day so it was a valentine party that went 7 hours & my kids were VERY happy with their party!

February Snow Day!

We finally got some snow last week so we raced out to play in it!  It's a good thing we did as it all melted away completely in just 4 days! 

 I was so impressed with Tommy.  I was busy making the big snow man & he made this one all by himself.  He even ran inside & got a carrot out of the fridge!

If you look closely you'll see 6 little snow men!

 I wanted to take the kids sledding on a big hill, but they are still young enough that my mom's slight hill in her yard is exciting enough! :)

January Update

January FLEW by for us!  Vic was gone for the 1st week for his final week of training in Texas.  Then every spare day we had, we spent looking for houses & found one!  We close on it next month :)

Vic turned 34.  Since we still don't know anyone we kept his birthday low key w/ peanut butter bars & ice cream with the kids & my mom.   

 I surprised him with a fancy new road bike. Here he is getting fitted for it.

 We tried to think of exciting date ideas since this was our first date in months, but all we came up with was dinner & a movie!  It was fun though :)

 The next weekend we drove over to Twin Falls to see Vic's nephew play basketball.  I love watching high school basketball & can't wait until my boys are that age!

 Vic, Jesse, & Trish:

 We've had fun dragging my mom around to the library & little kid activities.  Here they are at Home Depot:

 Here we are for our superbowl party w/ Evan & our parents:

I had been eating so good until this day... how could one withdraw from the ultimate snacks?! I decided I like superbowl food better than any other holiday's food!

....even with this feast, I still lost 10 pounds in January. Woot, woot!

New Year's Eve & Day

For New Year's Eve we drove over to Twin Falls & partied with Vic's siblings: Jesse, Julie, & Darren.  Even his mom & dad from South Africa skyped with us for a bit too!

 To start the year off right we all went for a walk on New Year's Day.  It was lucky it was a farm road as we were scattered all over the place!!  I am still going strong on my healthy challenge this year & it is the healthiest & longest I have ever stuck with it.... Go me! :) 

Here is a picture Tommy drew last month. it is his 1st detailed drawing.  He is so excited to buy a house with stairs.  Apparently we've made it big once we have a house big enough for a staircase!

Also, he's finally decided he can use more than one color on a page.

Cabin @ Christmas time

The day after Christmas we (Amber's family, mom, & Mark) headed up to the cabin to get some true Christmas time snow in.

 Tommy loved digging "tunnels" wherever he could.

 The new stairs off the front deck make a great slide!

 ...more tunnels

 I pulled the kids around on the lake for awhile.  It was a good workout so I had to shed my coat!

 Our cabin neighbors felt sorry for us & came out on their snow machines to pull us around!

 I had to take a picture of Vic's frozen sweat, haha!

 Vic had to go back to work a few days & the rest of us played games like crazy.

 Grandpa pulling the boys around.

 They loved it & had really frozen faces by the end!

 Whitney happily awaiting her turn & dancing in the snow

 Mom & I got bored waiting for the kids to come back so we started taking selfies!

 On New Year's Eve we drove over to one of Vic's best friends' cabin & played games with them until afternoon and then came back and worked on a snowman competition that the cabin's island does each year.

 It got too late so we gave up and Amber finished the next day with the final touches.

 ...and our beautiful beach scene won 1st place & won a mini snow machine sled!

As always, we had a blast up there!!!