Mama needs a new pair of shoes

I love several pair of Naturalizer shoes, and have entered a couple of giveaway contests.  One is HERE on Momma in Flip Flops2.

All kinds of festive.

It would seem that we've had a lot of little celebrations at our house.

It started with Valentine's day.  I put up a few decorations, with the quasi-promise that next year there will probably be more.  Chick, who loves decorations of any kind, added a few of her own.  My favorite was this:

"Anyone who can only think of one way to spell a word obviously lacks imagination." -Mark Twain

Chick and Monkey had a great time making valentines for their classmates.  I was pleased to see that they were fairly self-sufficient in getting it done.  I'd do whatever parental prepping was necessary for each step, and then they'd take over from there.  We made our version of one that we found on pinterest (of course?). 

For my family I gave them each a Doctor Who card that I printed out.  They loved them : ) 

Aside from that I did fun foods.  Heart shaped pancakes with strawberry syrup for breakfast with pink smoothies (that I added too much beet to, so they tasted a bit too much like dirt....).

Lunch (and preschool snacks) were heart-shaped foods-- cheese, strawberries, apples, summer sausage, cucumber, tortillas, (bread).  It was very pretty and fun, if I say so myself.

Dinner was heart-shaped calzones. 

Dessert was heart-shaped chocolate cake with a poured-on frosting, and I used the roses that I'd made when learning to make roses for Chick's birthday cake.  With all the candy consumed that day, though, we saved the cake for the next day...the kids were already a bit too hyped up to have dessert. 

The older girls and I watched "The Princess Bride" for a valentine movie night.  It was the first time for them.  They liked it, but didn't realize that it was funny!

Next up: hooray, the babies are eating solid food!  Not a lot yet, but some.  They started out with sweet potatoes.  Since then we've added avocado, banana, oatmeal, yogurt, and applesauce.  Feeding them is a family affair sometimes : )  And, at 8 months old, they finally broke 10 pounds!!  Owl was 10#3.5oz, and Otter was 10#4.5oz.

And I took a ton of pictures of them one day, so here's a little compilation.

They haven't been sleeping so well...  Boo.  Still no teeth (I was hoping that was causing the sleep disruptions).  Also still no crawling, but they are so close...sometimes they'll take a "step" or two to crawl, but no significant distances.  Owl will dive forward, get back up, dive forward, etc. until she gets close enough to grab things.  And if she's grabbing a person, then she'll hold onto your hands and drag herself forward.  It's pretty funny.  They look so delicate, but they are surprisingly strong.

naptime for all.  No one got smothered...it looks like it, though, in the picture.

Something else pretty momentous: Foxy got rid of his red truck!!  Once upon a time we went on our first date in that truck, and said our first "I love you's" in it, and took some kissy engagement pictures in it.  It was a strong manly truck.  Sexy even.  But ten years later?  The only thing that resembled those good old days were the pictures that Fox had stuck to the dashboard.  Here's one.

I'm glad that Fox is still in my life, but the truck?  I may or may not have danced a jig as they hauled it away.

 

This is a bit out of chronological order, but here is a picture of Chick with the quilt that her Grandma J made for her!  Isn't it beautiful?  She loves it.

 

 

The older three kids do a LOT of playing dress-up, and lately have a lot of pretend weddings.  They've asked to use my wedding veil, but I was hesitant to share.  So I found one at the thrift store for $2.  I used it as leverage: keep the bedroom clean for a week and the veil is yours.  Worked like a charm, but the next day the room was a mess again.  Sooo, the new rule is that they can play with the veil ONLY if their room is clean first. 

 

(Along those lines, I've confiscated clothes that were left on the floor...poor Monkey barely has any clothes left.  She's a slow learner, I guess.  If you see her in dirty rags one of these days, you'll know why.)

 

Chick, Monkey, and I went to see a BYU Young Ambassador's performance the other week.  I knew the girls would love it, and it was nice to do something special with them, since Owl and Otter still take so much attention and care.  I often have to say, "I can't do x because the babies need to be fed (or changed, or take a nap, or are fussy and need held, etc)." And the older kids all take it in stride and still love their babies (and still love their parents).  So it was nice to give them a much deserved night out.

 

Chick brought "Zero the Hero" home from school...isn't he cute?! (I'll be writing a separate post about education stuff...it's been very much on my mind lately).

Our last celebration: Dr. Seuss's birthday! 

We started out with Green Eggs and Ham for breakfast, along with Lorax mustache straws for our o.j.

I put up some Seuss quotes on the wall, but that's all the decorating that I did for this year...next year I hope to step it up a little more.  Maybe red and white streamers or something.

At any rate, for the "appetizer" at dinnertime they had fishy crackers with a counting worksheet.

Dinner was alphabet soup, and Lorax scenes made of oranges, carrots, cucumber, bread, and cheeses.  It's not NEARLY as cute as the one on pinterest.  It didn't matter.  They saw it and were excited, and we had a lot of "Look, it's the Lorax!" type of exclamations.  Well worth the effort.

Dessert consisted of red and white jello parfaits with laminated Cat in the Hat pics on top.

Motherhood is so much more enjoyable when I get to be creative...even if the creativity is for things that don't matter in the least (though I have fond memories of my Mom decorating for holidays...so maybe it does matter after all).

And will you succeed?

Yes! Yes, you will indeed!

98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.