Loving Love Day

Sometimes I love the simple holidays like Valentines Day best, because you can do some fun things without all the pressure and stress that Christmas can bring. My creativity for this year was more like copying...but when you have creative friends, why not? My friend, who by the way has an amazing blog you can check out here (who you may already know, becuase she is getting quite famous in the crafty-blog world) sometimes posts about her homemade lollipops. I gave them a try last year and they were pretty "fool-proof" so this year was round two.
I love this kid. While craftiness is usually lost on boys, this kid is always up for helping me with my newest project. The older boys wouldn't hear of having any other valentines treats besides store-bought NBA cards with store-bought sour licorice sticks attached. But this boy is always ready to humor me and go along with my ideas. So while the little two nap - he's my helper and we have a blast.

We wrapped them up in small plastic treat bags and tied 'em up with a ribbon.

Then for the cards...I remembered a different friend doing a cute thing last year. So, since I'm a creative copier, I started pulling all the ideas together...and...

He was even willing to go along with this next part, which involved a silly photo shoot holding out his fist in front of him.

Then using photoshop to crop and add the lettering, and $.13 cent 4x6 prints at Costco - we added the homemade lollipops and had our preschool Valentine's Day cards.

He was pretty happy with them - can't you tell by the half-smile he had while holding it up? Thanks Bode for always wanting to hang with mom and your help making Love Day lovely!

Laughter for 4 please.

A couple of years ago, some friends of our introduced us to a man, who has changed our family forever. Maybe you've heard of Brian Regan- a clean, family-friendly comedian who is simply hilarious. Since our first introduction two summers ago - everything that may be funny has to be scored against the Brian Regan scale. We don't quote movie lines at our house, but no family dinner-table discussion goes without dropping a Regan line. No family vacation or car ride can carry on without a Regan joke. Even our 3 year old knows lines, even though he doesn't know their meaning. Brian has infiltrated our home and his funnies just never get old to us. So our older boys were thrilled when "Santa" brought us 4 tickets to his January 28th show in Portland. Me and the boys met Bart downtown for a yummy dinner and then headed over to the "Schnitz" for a night of laughter.

His material was all new. And while good, we still think his "I Walked on the Moon" show takes the blue ribbon. My cheeks hurt from smiling and laughing continuously for 2 hours. It was too much fun and a great memory maker with our big kids. And the night ended perfectly when Brian encored with his "little league" segment. But instead of snow cones, we then headed to our favorite yogurt shop, Peachwave for some delicious dessert. Grape, no cherry. Grape or cherry. Both favorites!