My Loves

Holidays are much more fun when you have kids, including Valentine's Day! Mitch and I each got the kids a few candies and little knick knacks. They woke up on Valentine's Day to their surprises and were so sweet and excited about the whole thing. It was cute.
 
The kids and my mom and I went to the ice castles in Midway recently and it was awesome! We were there for nearly two hours and had a great time! I'm going to add some of the pictures into this blog post.

Mitch and I were able to spend a night in Park City over Valentine's weekend. He had accrued a bunch of hotel reward points, so we figured why not. Thankfully my parents are always more than willing to have the kids sleep over! We went to dinner, went shopping, and even saw a movie. It was nice to be somewhere different and out of the nasty inversion.

My grandma Ruth prepared a really yummy Valentine's dinner and it was fun to see her and Brock and Natalie, and of course, sweet, beautiful Evelyn! I don't know how, but she really gets cuter every time I see her!


The kids also went to a Valentine's party at the Mudrow's house! They passed out Valentine's, played games, and ate cupcakes. I love that the kids have lots of little buddies around the neighborhood.

We swapped babysitting with the Mudrows recently.
The kids had a blast decorating sugar cookies!

I helped with Layla's class party at school. I wish I had taken a picture of her in her cute Valentine's outfit! I even painted a pink heart on her face and tied a cute ribbon in her ponytail. She had a blast at the party. It was fun to see her classmates and put faces with names.

Our friends in Massachusetts sent us a kid
cook book and aprons to color and Layla loves
using them! I like that she eats ALL of her dinner
when she helps make it!

Speaking of Layla's classmates, she has been writing notes to everyone in her class. Each night Mitch and I check her notebook to see if she's written any more. ;) They are adorable and hilarious. I am going to copy some down, including her spelling and punctuation. Though most sentences are separated by a line or two.

• Dear easton You are funny and I am not falling In Love with you Layla
• chase You are srong and tuf Layla
• Dear Carter Jay Youre funny and cute You are falling in Love with Halle andrsin Yours truly Layla
• dear carter G i Know You're Last Name grim. and I think I know how to spell It. Youres truly Layla Bott
• Dear olivia I Do Not (with a cross out circle sign) Know How to spell Because of that Im still youre friend Riht Youres truly Layla (with a heart that says, "I Love You" inside.)
• Dear Lillan Amila thik's You're rude Because You Make her cry all the time Pleaes DoN't Do that Love layla Bott (Bott is written in impressive cursive. And she can spell "because" as it was one of her spelling words. She is now on 2nd grade spelling words!)
• Dear Josalin I Do Not Know how To Spell You're Name. (smiley face) Just Because of that I Just Want to Be friends with You. Love, Layla Bott (again, Bott is in cursive)
• Dear ella You are My sisy I love you Love, Layla Bott (Ella's last name is also Bott, though we don't know how we're related, and the girls call each other "sissy.")
• Dear ellie I want to mack Frends with you yours truly Layla (With a heart that says "Be Mine ellie" inside.)
• Dear elsie You are My Bff (Best frend forever.) Just becuase you are the closest in our class Do's No't mean You're My Best frend in the Class. Layla Bott (Elsie lives on our street. Also, I'm so proud of her use of parenthesis! I'm sure Layla didn't intend for this note to be mean, but it might make Elsie feel bad...)
• (There are two quarter notes drawn at the beginning and end of this letter, so I'm thinking it's supposed to be a song...) Amelia You're My Best frend. forever and ever. Amelia you're My Best frend forever and ever! Layla



Layla is doing a 5 week gymnastics class and is loving it!

• Dear Zen Lashir (her Chinese teacher) I am Witting stuff on paper and colring Pictshrs for eveyone. Just so you know. (smiley face) layla Bott
• She also wrote this up one day and put a doll under her shirt and made me come see her at the hospital. Made me laugh and weirded me out a little. ;)

And here are a few funny things the kids have done/said lately that I wanted to write down:

• Marcus woke up early and I told him he needed to go back to sleep. He got mad and yelled, "I wanna cock a doodle doodle doodle do! It's not faiw (fair)!"
• Layla is a bookworm. To the point where I get frustrated because every time I turn around her nose is in a book and I can't get her to listen or work on other things (now I know how my mom must have felt when I was a kid). The other day while trying to read her book I asked her to feed Harvey, put away her backpack, make her bed, etc. She finally said, "Is there anything else I need to do?! I keep getting interrupted and I want to read my book!" After finishing her tasks she sat down, picked up her book, let out a sigh, and said, "Now it's time to enjoy!" 
• Marcus made up a new knock knock joke all by himself, completely on the fly. I was sad that I was the only one home to witness his first telling of it because he did actions and everything. He said, "Knock, knock." (who's there?) "Dancing." while he does a little dance move. (dancing who?) "Dancing on a poopy diaper!" again, while dancing. He's something else!

It melts my heart that they always have to sight right.next.to.each.other!
I came out one day and they had set their sleeping bags up like this on the couch.

• Layla was mad at me because I made her do something, probably a chore, and it probably interrupted her reading. I can't even remember what it was, just a normal mom thing, telling her kid to do a chore or something like that. Well, Layla was so mad she stormed off and slammed the door to the bathroom. While she was washing her hands I happened to walk by and could hear her talking to herself about how mad she was at me. Then I heard her say, about me, "She may look pretty, but she's as mean as a hyena!" I had to run into the other room to hide my laughter. Every time I told anyone about it afterwards I could hardly spit out the words because I would be laughing so hard! Oh being a mean mom is rough! ;) I love her even if she thinks I'm as mean as a hyena! ;)

• In a nice mom moment recently, I sweetly told Layla, "I love you!" to which she smiled and said, "I love you too" and gave me a big hug. Next I turned to Marcus and said sweetly, " I love you, Marcus!" to which he turned to me and said, "I love you too bum bum mama!" And that right there is the difference between my girl and my boy!

• However, Marcus is a mama's boy through and through! He starts every morning off with a snuggle session with me, even if it's short. He has to get his snuggles in. And at Valentine's I asked him if his heartbeat says, "Mama, Mama" and he said yes.  I love my boy!