Valentine's Day!

I love Valentine's Day! I'm not into the gushy romantic stuff and neither is Mike, so for me, Valentine's Day is more of an excuse to decorate fun, and do extra fun things for and with the kids! Our Valentine's Day celebrating actually started a week early with the kids' school parties since they would be off-track for actual Valentine's Day. I got to help with my mom in Brayden's class, being in charge of a fun game. This is what my kids' valentines to their classmates looked like:

Then, my Valentine's Day started a day early with a fun surprise from Mike, flowers delivered to my door! They were not bloomed yet when I received them, so here's what they looked like almost all bloomed. Unfortunately, it turned out we were all allergic to the lilies, but we braved it out for a week because they were too pretty to throw away!

Here's what our table looked like Valentine's Day morning!

Brayden had been begging for the flowered shoes, and Ashton needed some new boot-type shoes so bad, so I thought why not turn them into their valentines?! I knew Brayden would be excited, but I was surprised that Ashton got as excited as he did!! Ha ha! They also got a little voucher for a trip to an arcade for the day.....

Mike surprised the kids with donuts that morning too!

I attempted to do Valentine's hair on Brayden. Hair isn't my best talent, but I tried! We did a (kind of) heart-shaped bun for her class party (I didn't get a pic til after school so it's a little messier here than it started out).....

And then we did this on Valentine's Day.....

Before heading to the arcade!

Nickelmania fun!

Then we had a little Yogurtland!

That night, we had a party at my parents' house with pizza, brownies, and fun games in their basement with cousins!

Decorating their favor bags!

Playing "Hot Potato" with Valentine's gifts from Grandma!

"Minute to Win It" chopsticks and conversation hearts game!

Lots of bubbles!!

The kids' favorite from our Halloween party, balloon darts!!

Then we ended the night with Just Dance and karaoke! Joshua loved dancing, and he's good!! He just refused to dance to Kesha or Britney Spears because he said they were "freaky"! Ha ha!

Mike and Brayden finished off the night with a duet! Mike got to show us all his karaoke skills he's picked up from his trips to the Philippines for work where they karaoke the night away! :) 

Happy Valentine's Day!!!

January 31st ~ Mike's Birthday!

Friday, January 31st was Mike's birthday. Mike took the day off, so I had some things planned for us until the kids got home. Bright and early we saw the first showing of the new Jack Ryan movie which I knew he had been wanting to see, then we had Olive Garden for lunch. Me and the kids had arranged ahead of time for them to come home from school and decorate the house. We weren't supposed to be home until a certain time so that they would have time to get things done, so Mike and I stalled by going to Best Buy to look around, which of course Mike didn't mind! When we got home, the kids panicked and told us we had to stay in the garage for a few more minutes, ha ha! When we walked in they were holding this banner with balloons! (They needed a little help hanging it!!) They did a great job decorating, I just feel bad I didn't get more pictures of all they did!

Mike opened his presents right away. The kids picked out this special card for him all by themselves.....

This was Mike's main gift, a laptop/tablet hybrid. Luckily he's nice enough to share - we've all been enjoying "his" gift!!

Mike's not a huge lover of cake, but his choice is usually yellow cake with chocolate frosting.....not very fancy but it's what he likes! :)

Ashton has taken on the job as the candle lighter for all of our birthdays! This thought probably would have terrified me a few years ago, ha ha, but he does great and takes it very seriously!

We topped off the night watching one of the "X-Men" movies together (we've been working our way through all of them for the kids to see) and eating fun treats Mike got for his birthday! Such a fun day!!

The next day, we celebrated with Mike's twin brother Nate, his family, and their parents at Spice Bistro for an Indian buffet, and then everyone came back to our house for an ice cream sundae bar! Sadly, Brayden had a high fever and had to stay in her bedroom all day, but we brought her back a big plate of Indian food which helped her feel better!

We always love a reason to celebrate, and had a great, fun weekend!