SNOW Buddies!

Presidents Day and Martin Luther King Day are similar holidays in that they both fall in the middle of the month, they come at the coldest time of the year and the kids get a day off from school. They both seem like kind of useless holidays that is unless you’re the one that gets the day off. The major problem I find with these holidays is that I have to figure out what to do with a free day, 2 boys, lots of snow, freezing cold temps and no plans! Personally, if I were given the choice, we’d stay inside, watch movies, eat popcorn and just keep warm...but that’s not what the boys wanted to do!

After only a few hours of hanging out and watching TV, Hayden and Connor decided that they wanted to go out and pull the sled behind the 4 wheeler and take full advantage of the snow that we had just received the day before. It was actually a pretty good idea as long as I didn’t have to go out with them. At first their plan worked well because Hayden got to have the fun of driving the 4 wheeler through the fresh snow in the pasture and Connor had the fun of getting to ride on the sled behind him. About midway through their fun though, Hayden decided that he wanted to have a turn on the sled too...and wondered if he could let Connor drive the 4 wheeler all by himself, since we had been trying to teach Connor how to drive the 4 wheeler anyway! Uh! I only had one response to that...NO! Sadly, I had no desire to get all bundled up and go out and pull him either, so they just had to be content with the way they were doing it. Then Jon and Brittney showed up and saved the day!

Connor is already to go!

Hot doggin' through the snow!

Hang on Connor!

Hayden finally had someone willing to go out in the cold and pull him behind the 4 wheeler...Jon! Brittney even braved the cold and went out and rode along with Jon on the 4 wheeler. It really didn’t look like any fun to me as I watched them through the sliding glass door, but they sure seemed to enjoy it and that was worth a lot! The one thing that I knew for sure was that when they finally quit and came inside, they were both sopping wet from falling off in the snow so much! It’s a good thing they had their snow gear on!

Hit it!

Does this really look fun?

They LOOK like they're having fun!

Will you BE MINE?!

Who doesn’t love Valentine’s Day? My favorite part is the sugar cookies and all of the cute heart decorations. On the other hand, the boys just love the fact that it’s one more holiday for them to get lots of candy. I think they kind of like writing on the Valentines and getting them ready to take to school too, but definitely their favorite part is the candy! I’ve taught them well haven’t I?

Aren't these cute? It's one of my new decorations and it's made with candy canes!

This is one of my new favorite Valentine decorations

We all love decorating cookies!

Hayden gets to do the sprinkles!

The final product!

Our favorite part is eating the cookies! We were going to share but we ate them too fast!

For Valentine’s Day this year, besides helping with class parties, I decided to decorate the boy’s rooms and give them a huge stuffed animal...one that I had bought for them last year when all of the leftover Valentine’s paraphernalia was on sale for like 80% off so you can only imagine how much I paid for them! That didn’t matter to the boys though! I “heart attack”ed their rooms by covering their entire floor with hearts and sat their stuffed dog in the middle of all of that. Then I closed their doors and put a big heart on the door that said “STOP! Enter with Caution!” The best part is that they had no idea that I was doing anything, so when they got home and saw the hearts on their doors, they couldn’t wait to go in! And they loved it! This may be the first and the last year I get to do that because by next year, Hayden will be too old for stuffed animals, but it was fun this year!

At Connor's class party, they decorated Valentine boxes, played games and ate Valentine treats!

Hayden's class buddies - Cody, Tyler, Hayden, Brighton

The sign on the boys door!

Hayden's room

Connor's room

Rod and I don’t normally do things for each other for Valentine’s day because we both think it’s kind of a lame holiday. And as much as I love flowers, I always threaten him if he even thinks of paying the overinflated prices for them on Valentine’s day! This year for some reason though I really wanted a wafflemaker about the same time as Valentines day, so guess what? That’s what my sweetie gave me...and I love it! He thinks I’m a little weird for wanting something like that, but I still love it!

Isn't it cool? It even makes two at the same time and it's just like the ones at the hotels!