My Valentine

My Valentine is my wonderful husband, Brad. We have been with each other for the last 9.5 years (married 7.5 of those). It's hard to imagine what my life would be without him in it. On our Valentine's Day date, we actually talked about how different our lives would have been if he had gone away to college (he was supposed to go to Cedarville University on a soccer scholarship) and I would have stayed home to attend U of M-Flint. Would we have stayed together? Would we have met different people and married them? We wondered where we would be in our lives right now. Although it's interesting to assume what might have happened, we are so glad we are together and we know that God was in control of everything then (and now too), knowing what was best for us. I love Brad with all my heart!!! I can't say we've had the perfect marriage (but who has?) because we sure have had our trip down some bumpy roads, but we've stuck it out together and grown stronger in our relationship. We've made a lot of great memories with each other and I wouldn't trade them for anything in the whole world. He is my best friend and the love of my life.
This past weekend we celebrated Valentine's Day without our kids on Sunday afternoon. We had planned to go out then because we didn't want to have to fight any crowds at restaurants and at the movies on Saturday. Plus, I found this awesome coupon for B1G1 free at Bargain Shopper Lady, but it wasn't good on Valentine's Day. So, after church, we headed out to do a little shopping, eat dinner, and see a movie.

We went to Somerset Mall and just walked around for a couple hours. We didn't buy anything, but just enjoyed looking around without having to push a stroller or deal with fussy kids. It was extremely nice! We then went to eat at TGI Friday's (because of the coupon and we like the food) and had a nice dinner. After that, we went to the theater and saw "Confessions of a Shopaholic". I have read all the Shopaholic books, so I really wanted to see this movie. Brad was sweet enough to go and watch it with me, even though I know he would have much rather seen an action or suspense movie. He said he liked it though.

By the time it was over, it was 10pm, so we headed home. We didn't have school on Monday (yea!), so our kids were still up so we could hug and kiss them before going to bed.

Brad had also bought me this beautiful bouquet of roses on Saturday.

All in all, it was a very nice Valentine's! I loved spending time with my one true Valentine!! I love you Brad!

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day!!!Today was full of Valentine's parties, dinners, and treats! Our family celebrated the holiday a day early!!




Halle had her Valentine's Day party at school this afternoon. I couldn't make it up there because I had to work, but they had cookies (which we provided), candy, and the kids passed out their Valentines to each other. Halle passed out these really cool Valentine's. They were made of foam and you could put glitter all over them and stick on other foam stickers. They turned out really cute!

(Blogger kept turning these pictures vertically everytime I uploaded them, so I gave up and kept them this way-if you know how to make that not happen, please let me know)

This afternoon after work, I ran to Wal-Mart and picked up a couple of really cute Valentine's baskets for my kiddies. I had to get my 2 BIG loves a little something for the holiday!!!

This was Halle'sThis was Parker'sThey both were really excited to get something special for V-Day! They both carried around their baskets with their stuffed animal in it the rest of the evening.

Dad D. came home tonight with his hands full of flowers for all the girls. He got me a vase full of white and pink carnations, Jess a single long stem rose, Halle a mini teddy bear holding a vase with 3 mini roses, and Mom a big teddy bear holding a vases of roses!!! It was such a surprise!!!
Here's mine
Here's Halle's
Here was our table for dinner!! Mom D. bought everyone cards, so we opened them before we ate. We made tacos and corn bread for dinner! It tasted so good!!

We had a great evening celebrating this fun holiday!!! Brad and I are planning on going out Sunday night (we don't have school on Monday!!!) to celebrate together!! I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day with your loved ones.

Friendship Award

My sweet friend, Betsy, honored me with this "Friends" award today!

This is what the award is for:

"These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find friends and be friends. They are not interested in self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships will be propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. Deliver this award to eight bloggers who must choose eight more and include this cleverly- written text into the body of their award."

I am passing this along to a couple of people who were real life friends with me at some point in time, but now we stay in touch through our blogs:

Christy

Stacey

Suzanne

Riding Horses

We've had a heat wave up here the last 2 days!!! It's been in the 40's and everyone has been ecstatic!! I mean, people are breaking out their shorts for this warm weather!!! When you haven't been above 20 degrees in over a couple months, 40 does seem warm...Well, we didn't break out our summer clothes, but we did get out Oreo, and Halle and Parker went riding a couple days this week.

Parker absolutely loved riding. He didn't want to get off!He's not looking too happy that Halle has to ride with him

Oreo, Brad, Parker, and HalleI forgot to take any pictures of Halle riding by herself, but she is doing extremely well!!! We're considering entering her into some horse competitions this spring/summer. Brad did it while he was growing up, and we know Halle would enjoy getting dolled up and showing off a horse in competition. She just needs to keep practicing.

You will notice that we still have many inches worth of snow on the ground and the kids are still wearing their snow gear!!! It's still winter here (boo-hoo), but boy do we wish spring would get here soon!!

Crafts with Halle

A few posts ago I mentioned that Halle is totally and completely into doing crafts. I think my exact words were "she would do a craft everyday if I would get on the ball and plan some to do". Well, I was quite proud of myself yesterday for finding a Valentine's Day craft, going to the craft store and buying the materials, and actually sitting down with Halle and doing it. She was completely flabbergasted that I actually had a fun craft to do. I think I might have earned a few "Cool Mom" points yesterday with her!! Yea for me!!!

I found this really cool and easy Valentine's Day Wreath craft to do on another blog Little Birdie Secrets. It really is very easy and quite inexpensive to do. I paid $4 for the heart shaped styrofoam and only $1.75 for the Valentine's Day fabric. If you want the directions, you can find them at Little Birdie's Easy Valentine's Wreath.

Here's our Valentine's Day Wreath:

A few nights before making our wreath, we finally opened one of Halle's birthday presents and used it. She got the Easy-Bake Decorating Pen and a whole bunch of cake mixes, frostings, cake decorations and an apron from her aunts and uncles. They know how much she loves to do crafts and bake obviously!!! Well, we made chocolate cupcakes and then spent a long time using the pen to decorate all our cupcakes.

This is the pen and all the utensils that come with it

Parker kept sneaking frosting while we were decorating

A few of Halle's creations

Halle's First Place Poster

Halle took 1st place on her poster for the Lapeer Conservation District Poster Contest this past fall. There were over 1,000 posters entered for grades K-12, and Halle's took 1st place in the K-1st grade category. Her poster went to the regionals, but did not place. We were SO proud of her!!! You can go see all the winning posters here.
Way to go Halle!!!!

Super Bowl Sunday

The other day while I was on the way to work, the guys on the radio were talking about how we aren't supposed to call it the "Super Bowl" anymore, but to call it "The Big Game". I hadn't heard anything about it until then, but thought it was kind of funny. Why would you call it anything other than the Super Bowl?? I mean, it wouldn't even sound right if you called it something other than that. "The Big Game Sunday" or "The Big Game Party"...It doesn't have that same ring that "Super Bowl Sunday or Party" has.Anyways...We had our Super Bowl party last night! It was just a small group and was very low-key. We made homemade pizzas and salad and had hot fudge cream puffs for dessert. Although I am not a huge football fan, I did choose to root for the Arizona Cardinals because they were the underdog and because I have family that lives in AZ.

In the past I have only ever watched the game to see the commercials. I know companies spend millions of dollars for just a few seconds worth of air time during the game (30 seconds= $3 million this year) and it is exciting to see what they come up with. I thought this year's commercials were some of the best ever. We laughed on quite a few of them. One of my favorite's was the Bridgestone Tire with the Potato Heads. It was really cute!!! We also got our 3-D glasses and watched the commercials in 3-D. We all thought they could have been a little better, but we liked the SoBe Lifewater one the best.

I watched the majority of the game this year (which is a 1st for me- I usually only last 1-2 quarters). I did fall asleep a little in the beginning, but towards the end, the game got really exciting, so I watched. I was hoping for a Cardinal win (and they almost had it), but the Steelers pulled through and got that last touchdown to win it!! Although my team lost, it was still a really good game!!!

I didn't watch the Half-Time concert, but from what I've heard, it wasn't anything great!! I did LOVE Jennifer Hudson's National Anthem...Oh. my. word...It gave me chills.

Overall, I thought this year's Super Bowl was one of my favorites overall. Good food, good times, good game, and good commercials...Couldn't ask for much better than that.