Valentine's Day.

Valentine's Day. Such a silly holiday. But also such a fun one. It's more meaningful for us because it was February 14th that we first spent any actual time together. (Other than a few awkward conversations in our institute class and several repeated requests/refusals for dates.) That is the day that our lives changed, became intertwined, and we didn't even know it yet.

So it's kind of a special day. 

This year, Lydia is old enough to understand the fun. She saw me putting a small bag of chocolate heart candies into our grocery cart when we were shopping (even though I tried to hide it) and I told her that it was a surprise treat for her Valentine's present. She was thrilled. She then picked out a surprise Valentine treat for Austin( little cheddar bunny crackers), and - with some help- some dark Dove chocolates for David. She was concerned that I didn't have a treat, but I assured her that her daddy would get me one. (She made sure that he did, in fact, have a treat for me before Valentine's Day actually arrived.) Our budget was only $10 for everyone, but I had a gift left over from Christmas that I had been holding planning to give David. I started worrying about whether he would actually like it (fancy ice-cream bowls) and a couple of days before I had told him that I changed my mind, I didn't think we should give each other anything for Valentine's. I didn't want any candy or really any gift. I just wanted to have a fancy dinner that night and spend time together. 

Valentine's was on a Sunday this year, but I planned a big Valentine dinner on Saturday night with all red food. Pizza with heart shaped pepperoni, red peppers, red punch, red jello, heart shaped breadsticks, etc... I thought it would be fun to celebrate with the kids. They were so excited. However, when we sat down to eat - they only wanted the jello (and the punch, I suppose). They loooooooooveeeeeed the jello. Memo to self: next Valentine's day, don't spend hours preparing a fancy "red" dinner. Just serve red jello. Ha. 

(Also, we got our carpets cleaned earlier in the day so our couches joined us in the kitchen for our fun dinner. It was a little... squishy. But funny)

After the kids were in bed, we turned on a Hallmark movie and cleaned the kitchen together while I made cinnamon rolls for breakfast the next morning. Did you know it takes forever to make cinnamon rolls from scratch? I found a "fast and easy" recipe and it still took over 2 hours to make! 

However, the in the morning we enjoyed those homemade cinnamon rolls for breakfast.

Then off to church, and home for some quality time together. (I realize I'm probably putting too much detail into what we actually did that day - but in all honesty, it's faster for me to just write the words as they come to my mind than to sit and figure out the best way to say things and which parts to include and which parts to leave out.) David won husband-of-the-year and let me go upstairs to take a much needed nap. Then we switched and he got to lay down for a couple of minutes while I started making dinner and Lydia made Valentine's. We made a simple dinner of heart-shaped quesadillas for Lydia and Austin (they both just ate leftover jello, again) while I prepped for one of the fanciest dinner's I've ever made. Not every Valentine's Day are we in the place in life that we want a fancy dinner together, or that we have the energy to make it, but this year - we thought it would be really fun. So after the kids were in bed, we finished up our menu of Beef Wellingtons, garlic red potatoes, roasted asparagus, and you guessed it - red jello. 

If you don't know what a Beef Wellington is, it's a steak covered in a mixture of onions and mushrooms, wrapped in puff pastry and baked until the pastry is golden and the steak is still only at a medium doneness. David doesn't like mushrooms so I made his a little differently and I chopped up some cooked bacon to include with his onions. It was pretty tasty! We used our fancy china and even pulled down some candles to make it even more special. Austin was having a hard time sleeping, so throughout dinner prep we took turns going up to help him, but he slept through dinner, which was so nice. We were planning to make ice-cream shakes afterwards, but we were stuffed and then Austin woke up, so the night ended with me on the couch with a sleeping baby on my chest and David covering me with a blanket and bringing me a pillow. 

True love. And isn't that what it's all about, anyway? 

I just feel so blessed to have such a wonderful little family. My husband who loves me, and who I absolutely adore. My children who I love more than anything else, and who love me even though I am very much an imperfect mother. 

An incredibly blessed life full of making messes in the kitchen, resulting in hot dogs, quesadillas, cinnamon rolls, and Beef Wellingtons. 

Oh! I can't believe I forgot the biggest surprise of all! Brace yourselves for this, because I'm still pinching myself. I came downstairs after checking on Austin one of the times, and David had pulled out a stack of Valentine gifts for me, beautifully wrapped in Valentine paper. (David's so good about things like that.) He had mentioned that he had something to give me, so I had decided to give him his Ice Cream bowls after all plus a pretty lantern for our entry that we'd been looking for forever and I had found on clearance at Target. ( I "wrapped" mine in walmart sacks.)  I had brought my simple gifts down when I came down the stairs and my jaw dropped when I saw the big pile of gifts from David. Remember, we had talked about a $10 budget and then no gifts at all?

The smaller boxes contained a few pieces of pretty jewelry: necklaces and earrings. The box of chocolates I had mentioned off hand a couple of days prior as something I might like if he was going to get something. But the big box? I had no idea. Actually I had an idea, but it couldn't possibly be what I was thinking - so I tried to push that thought to the back of my mind so I could find out what it really was. But (and now I'm going to cry just thinking about it), it was what I thought it was. David surprised me with a little robot vacuum. It's a Bissell Smart Clean and I love it. I haven't been able to play with it much yet, but I'm just so in shock and so excited all at the same time. I've wanted one of these for so long and I'm so thrilled at the idea that I actually have one of my own. I know it's silly, but it's a big deal to me and I can't believe that I married someone who is so thoughtful and kind and knows me so well. I'm a lucky girl. The luckiest girl. I mean, I'd still be so incredibly lucky without a vacuum, because this guy? This family? This life? It's so, so good. But to have the vacuum, too? It's just the incredibly delicious cherry on top of a giant ice cream sunday of blessings and happiness. 

This is a Title.

One of the hardest parts of writing blog posts is coming up with the title. Is that the weirdest thing ever? I feel like I have to have a title before I can start writing. Which is why, if you look through just the titles of this blog they usually repeat based upon the day of the week that they are posted. Is it Tuesday? Let's do an Insta-Tuesday post. Is it Friday? Top Five. Is it Wednesday? Let's just call it... Wednesday. Yeah, I'm pretty awesome.

I think I finally found a preschool! It's a preschool that is held in a Gymnastics gym and it incorporates gymnastics into the curriculum. (Meaning, they get to go learn gymnastic skills for a portion of the time and they try to incorporate physical movement into other parts of their teaching, too.) I'm super, super excited about it. I think it will be perfect for my incredibly active, physically adventurous daughter.

Speaking of, at this very moment, that daughter of mine is running around the house with absolutely zero pieces of clothing on. I sent her upstairs just a couple of minutes ago to put on her pajamas because she stripped out of her clothes the second we got home from running errands. (She prefers to be in pajamas if we are just hanging out at the house... *cough* I wonder where she gets that from.) However, she came back down - minus the underwear she was wearing - and now she's jumping around saying that she'll never, ever, ever get dressed again. *sigh* Picking my battles today.

Last night, David got home just after nine after working an incredibly long day at Eide Bailly. I was working on a new project for a friend/business. (Lioness at the Door - I haven't blogged about this, but I should soon. It's really incredible.) David got home, we popped popcorn and watched Studio C in our bed. It was so nice and I'm just so grateful that we have that time to spend together, even if he is working a lot of hours right now. Because let me be clear. He's working a lot of hours right now. But having a 16 month old and 3.75 year old is infinitely easier than having a 4 month old and a 2.75 year old and we are weathering the storm of busy season pretty well. Most of that credit needs to go to David. He's the one that is working so many hours, but when he is home... he is home.  He pays ample amounts of attention to the kids and plays the same game with them over and over and over. Then as soon as they are in bed, he talks to me and makes me feel like the best wife/mother in the world. (Even if I never actually got any of us out of our pajamas that day.) He is just so kind. And I'm grateful. So I will not complain about him working late, because I know how hard he is working - and how hard he works to make sure that we all still feel loved when he is home. He's amazing. I really don't know how he does it.

*Update: Lydia is now wearing both underwear and her "minnie mouse pajamas that she got for Christmas". That's how she specifies them. Thanks Aunt Jenna for the rocking-awesome Christmas gift, she wears them pretty much every day.*

Speaking of Aunt Jenna, for Camille's birthday we gave her a "coupon" to come with us to the Children's Museum. Jenna came down with Jason and Camille and braved coming with us and we had a really nice time. I can't say enough how incredibly glad I am that Jenna lives close to us finally! She's been stuck away in Idaho for years and years and having her in Salt Lake makes me so happy. I love that we can get together on a random weekday and spend time together. I know this probably isn't a permanent thing, so I'm just going to enjoy her while I have her here!

I don't think we are going to renew our Thanksgiving Point Passes this year. They expire next week. (At least mine does. Lydia and David's passes go until May - so he'll still be able to go with the kids on the weekends.) We didn't go as much this year as we did initially and it's just more money now that we have to pay for a pass for Lydia, too. Last year to earn the money for our passes, we put a message on our neighborhood Facebook page and offered to watch people's kids on Valentines day. We got a decent showing - and then I supplemented the rest with other money that I earned from babysitting. But this year, I think we are going to focus on trying to do other fun things that cost less money. I always feel like if we are going to do something we need to go to the museum because we paid so much money for the passes, but there are actually a lot of cheap and free things to do around here and I'm so excited for summer so we can get out and do some of those fun things. (Plus, we got pass of all passes this year and I'm planning to spend the summer at seven peaks!)

In other random news. I did the funniest thing this last week. A girl posted and asked if anyone was able to sew well enough to make a Spiderman wedding garter for her wedding. I have some lace and ribbons and things just laying around (thank you Grandma McAllister for all the beautiful lace!) so I messaged her and told her that I could. In retrospect, it was way more work for not enough money and it took much longer than I thought- but I did it. As I was sewing the garter, I was asking myself, "Why am I doing this? What was I thinking?" Then after I delivered it, they loved it so much that they wanted me to make another one for them to toss at the reception so that they could keep the first one. I negotiated a slightly better price and made a second one. I think it is such a funny thing, and kind of strange, but we are planning to use the money I made for something fun. I bought the Lego guys off of Amazon ($6 a piece), used the ribbons and lace from my ribbon drawer and lace collection, and made $45 off of the two garters. Not too shabby! I almost didn't post about it because it's so weird, and kind of embarrassing. I mean, it's essentially a piece of lingerie. That I made. For someone's wedding. But, it's a funny story from my life - so there you have it. If someone ever needs something completely crazy sewn, I guess I'm the girl to do it.

Five Things

Here are five things that have happened recently, in no particular order:

1. Preschool is driving me crazy. I can't believe that you have to register for preschool for the following school year in January! I put it off until February but now I'm feeling the pressure. These are the things I want: In my neighborhood (like, if there was one across the street, that would be great), child-centered learning that is developmentally appropriate (no worksheets- and I think I might be the only person who doesn't want the preschool to teach my child to read), a 4 year old class, not combined 3 and 4 year olds, affordable (we've budgeted $90 but was hoping for closer to $75 - and I know a bunch of people who are paying between $135 and $300, which is insane! ) It's not like I'm waiting for angelic visitors to tell me which preschool will be the best, but I am a little worried about finding the preschool that will be the best fit for us and will be the best for Lydia. I've gone to one preschool, and talked to several others. I think that we've decided on one but I haven't filled out any paperwork or anything. I'm going to go visit it on Monday, so hopefully it just feels like it will work for us. (Plus, it's probably the closest preschool to us - which isn't a coincidence. I just really value that proximity.) I'm having all of these flashbacks to college and how much I hated anything that had to do with preschool. The preschool co-op that we've been doing hasn't been bad, but ugh. I really have negative feelings about preschool.


2. One of our neighbors invited us to go on a little field trip to the Fire Department. I told Lydia that morning and she was so excited! She insisted that she wear her firefighter coat and helmet. I tried to convince her to just wear her coat, but she insisted on having both. Then, once we got there she pretty much just complained the whole time and repeated over and over, "I just want to go home, right now." "Mom, I'm soooooo hungry. I just want to go home, right now." Nevermind that it was only 9:30 in the morning and that she had eaten a mountain of french toast for breakfast, and then several "snacks" before we left. (This girl is hungry all the time!) In her defense, when I finally got her some more food - she really did eat a lot and was much happier. She really was hungry, which made her grumpy.  So my bad for not bringing snacks in my diaper bag. Hangry, if you will.

So the whole experience was pretty much a bust, ending in tears when she was standing on the front of the firetruck for a picture and the garage door went up and she was afraid that the truck was going to start driving away with her on it. (Poor girl, it's hard to be so little.)

3. Did I mention (pardon me while I have a proud-peacock moment) David recently received a promotion at his work? He is now an Audit Manager at Eide Bailly, and is rocking it - if I do say so myself. I'm so proud of how hard he works and it's obvious that he is a huge asset to his firm. In fact, the national office has selected David, along with 11 others in the whole nation (23 offices) to be a specialist in the new software they are going to start using. As a "knowledge coach" he will be trained in the software, and then go out to the rest of the company to teach each firm the software. It's a huge deal for him to be selected and is an amazing thing for his career. He will get to work with many people on a national level and have some serious name-recognition. He's definitely a leader in the company and I'm SO proud of him.

*ahem* I digress. So, along with the promotion to manager comes a fancy office. For Christmas I gave him a nice photo of Old Main to go up on the wall. We went to his office last Friday and hung it together. It looks really nice and clearly marks him as an Aggie. :) He's gotten lots of compliments on it and I'm just glad that it looks so nice in his office!

4. I've been in kind of an adventurous food mood lately. There have been some failures (I'm looking at you Cheesy Beef Enchiladas with homemade enchilada sauce), but also some super successes. Some of the best new things that I've found and made lately: Beef and Noodles (with homemade egg noodles), an incredibly flavorful beef roast, Pineapple-upside-down cake-in-a-mug, and a rock-star White Chicken Chili (something that I've been searching for for years). Things that are on the meal plan to try are: Italian BMTs with homemade Italian bread, taco cups, chicken gyros with tzatziki sauce, AND for Valentine's Day - I will be attempting to make Beef Wellingtons. Seriously. It might majorly fail, or it might go down in history as the fanciest meal I've ever made. 

Can we talk for a minute about making my own egg noodles? I've been watching a lot of Food Network lately, (namely Worst Cooks in America where I've realized my cooking skills actually fit in better with those competitors vs something like Chopped or Cutthroat Kitchen), and they've made noodles several times. I thought, if these "worst cooks" can manage this - shouldn't I be able to? The recipe I was using for the above mentioned Beef and Noodles called for frozen egg noodles. I couldn't find any at the store, and really- my budget was tight and I was going to squeeze them in because I wanted to make this recipe. When I couldn't find them I thought, maybe- maybe I'll make them. I did and it was really not that difficult. Plus the look on David's face when I told him that I actually made the noodles in the soup he was eating was priceless. I must have done something right because he raved about that soup for days. I think it's probably the best thing I've ever fed him for dinner. 

5. We've had some pretty good dates lately. Seriously, joining a babysitting swap might be the best thing we've ever done for our date-nights. (We babysit one Friday night and we get two Friday night dates.) Some of our recent dates: Going to the temple together, walking around City Creek and thinking about all the money we saved by not buying anything, and most recently going to the ropes course at Thanksgiving Point Museum of Curiosity. (We've wanted to go to the ropes course for a long time, and we had such a good time. We decided that we could definitely cross a tiny log over a giant ravine in the jungle if we were being chased by lions or something equally as dangerous. Especially if we had enough time to warm up and practice, and double-especially if we were connected to super secure harnesses. Our favorite part was balancing-no hands, and also racing each other up the big rope-stairs.) 

We also have season tickets to Hale Center Theatre Orem this year and we went to our first play, "The Nerd" last weekend. Melissa and Blake came and watched our kids. (They are so awesome!) We had such a fun time. We love the Hale, and The Nerd did not disappoint. There were times we were laughing so hard that there were tears to be seen. Just so funny and fun to be together.