day of love

On a recent shopping trip to Target, Brooke and I found the cutest bubble necklaces shaped like hearts.  I asked Brooke if she wanted to give valentines to her "dance girls", and I was not surprised that she was in love with the idea.  I printed some tags to attach to the necklaces, and asked Brooke if we should type her name, or if she would like to write it.  She assured me that she wanted to write it with marker, but I should have known better, haha.  She still needs a lot of help writing her name, and after one or two tags, she was burnt out.  We still had 8 to go, so it was a long process.  Towards the end, she kept saying "let's do team work", as in, I help her write her name.  They turned out pretty cute though, and her friends at dance loved them. She passed them out the Friday before Valentine's Day, and a few other friends passed out cards as well. Her dance teachers wrote her a cute note that said " Dear Brooke, Your smile lights up our room! Love, Miss Emily and Grace."

We Facetimed with my parents the night before the big day so the kids could open their gifts from them.  We would be at mutual the next night, so this was our best chance.  Brooke LOVED her new cookie set, and Colby loved his new sound puzzle (once I added the batteries, haha).

When I came downstairs from getting Brooke to sleep, Kevin had two bouquets of flowers with cards set up on the counter. I had reminded him earlier in the week to get his little valentine some flowers, but I wasn't expecting them the night before.  He said that he wanted them there for when she woke up in the morning.  And so that I could enjoy my flowers all day :)  It was very thoughtful, and I knew that Brooke would feel so special.

Before the kids woke up, I blew up some balloons and scattered them all over the loft. I had ordered Brooke a new umbrella to replace the one she broke a month ago.  I also bought her a huge drawing pad, and picked up some new princess crowns ("from Colby").  Brooke picked out a kickboard for Colby, and I bought him a few new t-shirts.

Colby was my assistant while I made cheesecake and cookies.  Brooke had left the stool over by the sink, and when I turned around to get ingredients out, he climbed to the top and was messing with the dirty dishes.  He had never done that before, so I was totally surprised.  He is still wobbly when standing, so I was nervous!  I moved the stool to where I was working, and kept a close eye on him.

Sometimes I can't get enough of his cuteness!  I took a few more pictures before getting him down for his nap.

I bought Brooke a new outfit for Valentine's Day, but then we left it in Austin on our recent trip.  So, since she wanted to dress up anyway, I let her wear the Aurora costume since it was the perfect shade of pink.   She even let me curl her hair!  I think it was her idea to stand by "her castle".

We decided to drive up to Grandma and Papa's house to deliver our valentine gifts.  Melanie met us there, and the girls loved that extra time together. 

Papa had been in the hospital the whole week before, so he was happy to have his grandkids over for a visit.

Looking at these pictures reminds me what a busy day we had!  I went to the grocery store in the morning, made cookies to take to Flower Mound, made a cheesecake for Kevin (his favorite), spent time in Flower Mound, then drove through Culver's for dinner before heading to mutual where I was in charge of the joint YM/YW activity.  It makes me tired just thinking about that day, haha.

Thankfully, it was a pretty low key activity (making statues out of recyclables and telling stories about them), so it worked out well.  One of my newer Beehives (Mckenna) is such a huge help to me when I have the kids with me.  They both love her, and are content to hang with her when I'm preoccupied!