2015 Blue Jeans Week 7

This week I got our taxes done.  Always nice to have that over with.  I had to do extra this year and do Miss A's since she worked all summer.  Had 2 basketball games, did a school Valentine's party, enjoyed a family fun day in the city, Miss A got first in her forensics meet, and enjoyed a nice Valentine's Day weekend with my family.  Take a look at our week. . .

The joy of the tax season.  But they are done, refund coming, and it is all good!  

Basketball game #1 for the week.  Miss O is playing really well.  So proud of her.  She has a great coach and a great team!  Just a few more weeks in the season. . .and then track starts :)  Never a dull moment.

Mr J's class Valentine's party.  They had to open a Hershey's kiss with the gloves on :)  As you can see, he really liked the game :)

For Wednesday night church youth activity we made valentine's for the ladies in our church.  Lots of creativity going on here!

Kids didn't have school Thursday or Friday, so we headed up to the city for some appointments and then had some family fun.  Ben took the day off, and we went ice skating.  Usually it is really crowded, but we were the only ones there for about 2 hours.  It was nice to have the place to ourselves!

Mr J figuring out the ice skating thing :)

My beautiful flowers that greeted me Saturday morning.  I love roses! and I really love the guy that gave them to me :)

The girls making chocolate dipped strawberries for our Valentine's dinner.

Miss A had a forensics meet on Saturday.  She got a 1st place and qualified for State in original oration--which was a 10 minute memorized speech that she wrote.  Way to go Miss A!

Our traditional Valentine's Day dinner at my parents with the sister missionaries, my sister and brother-in-law and some other family friends.  It was a very nice evening!

Thanks for visiting!  Hope you have a great week!

Valentine's Day

We had a really fun Valentine's Day.  The kids didn't have school because of conferences, so Ben took the day off, and we headed to the city.

We went to the art museum in the morning.  It is one of the best art museums and very kid friendly.

Miss O loved the knights in shining armour.

Then we grabbed some lunch and went ice skating.  Ben and I figured we hadn't been ice skating in 14 years.  Mr J and Miss E had never been.  

Whoa!  I totally lost track of how many times Mr J fell down, but he laughed and got right back up every time.

Miss O is a pro and has been several times.

Miss A hasn't been for a few years, but she did great.

Today was Miss E first time ever, and she was a little wobbly at first, but figured it out.

Miss O and Ben were good helpers for Mr J

But then he was done with that and ready to fall and go on his own :)

Our fun skating family.  I did skate too, but I was the one with the camera, so no pictures of me, and I didn't fall just in case you were wondering :)

And it was so fun to spend the day with my sweetheart.  Man I love that guy!  He is amazing!  and so cute!!!

So after ice skating so long we could barely walk (at least Ben and I) we headed home and had our Valentine's dinner.  I had got red and white heart shaped ravioli from Costco which were really good.

Then we opened our family Valentine box and enjoyed our awesome cards to end the evening of a fun and very eventful day.   Hope you had a good Valentine's day!

Share the love and finally getting something done

So we are getting ready to decorate for Valentine's Day at our house today, and I wanted to share some love

I have a few decorations out that I really like and wanted to share.

I got this from eighteen25 over here

I love even more eighteen25's free subway art collection.  If you haven't checked it out, please do so.  I have almost all of them, and I print them in 16x20, use the same frame, and just change them out each month.

Some other food love I wanted to share this week. . .

I have made this creamy chicken and wild rice soup almost monthly since I first saw the recipe here.  It is so good and so easy with the crock pot.  Love crock pot recipes!

I make the soup with these yummy rolls.

For breakfast this week I made these wheat berry blender pancakes which are so good!

And I made these whole grain waffles--twice--because they were so good.

And I have made these Andes Mint cookies twice this week--once for our family to enjoy and once for a school bake sale.  My daughter's friends were over when I made them, and one said, "Oh, these are my favorite cookies that you make!"  They are very good.  Check them out here.

Finally I wanted to share my project from yesterday that took about, um, 2 hours.  My baby is 7 years old, and he doesn't have a baby book.  He has been begging me, "Mom, when are you going to do my book?"  Poor kid, being the last of 4, it just goes like that.  So, when Becky Higgins came out with her baby kits, I was determined to get one and get Mr J's baby book done.  

So, I had all the stuff.  I had gotten the album at Hobby Lobby a few weeks ago.  I had all the pictures printed for over 2 years just sitting in a box (anyone else relate to this??) and I finally had some time to sit down and get it all together.  It is by no means all "done," but I got up until he was 8 months old into a book that he can look at!  I haven't done any journaling or got the journaling or filler cards in yet, it is just basic, but I am so excited!  It was so easy and so fulfilling to get it done!!!  yeah!  I am a believer :)

Here are a few of the pages. . . 

I used mostly Design A, but also Design G and D, and I had already typed out my memories of each month and had them in 8x10 pages to put also.

Yeah!  What a cutie!

And look at him now!!!!  He was super excited when he got home from school and I showed him.  He loved it!!!  "Wow Mom!  Thanks!"  and he had to bring in each of his sisters to show them and Ben when he got home.  He was so proud, which just made my day, and then as he was leaving today he said, "Mom, are you gonna work on my book again?"  Yes, I am.  So nice to finally get something done that you have needed to do for like, 6 years :)  Thank you Becky Higgins!