January and February

(A lot of these pictures have been posted on Instagram. Sorry if it's a repeat for you, but I wanted to record these on the blog too.)

The past two months have been full of snow and cold weather.

We've played out in the snow a bit, but have mostly stayed inside for two months. And between Dallin getting sick a few times, me being sick for a week, and a handful of snow days off from school, we've been at home A LOT. Bennett has been fine with that, but the older boys: not so much. I've tried to come up with a few fun things to occupy them.

I saw this fun idea on Pinterest to put paint inside a ziploc bag and tape it to the table.

It's supposed to be mess free finger painting.

I think I should have used more paint. It didn't work very well because the boys couldn't quite figure out how to manipulate the paint through the bag. So 15 minutes of preparation bought me 5 minutes of them playing. That pretty much sums up parenting.

One craft project that did work came from the Kiwi Crate my mom ordered for the boys. It's a service that mails a few age appropriate craft projects to your house. Perfect for the winter months!

This crate had crafts related to baking. First they got to decorate a chefs hat and apron with crayons and stickers. Then they got to decorate a foam cake with "frosting" clay. They had a lot of fun with the cakes.

We've also played with the Periodic Table building blocks that Connor got for Christmas.

 

We spelled out the names for everyone in our family. Mine was the only one that could be spelled out perfectly.

The 3 boys all needed silent letters at the end of their names.

Other ways to keep life interesting when it's below zero:

Penguin sandwiches, floating through the cantaloupe-iceberg filled ocean, eating goldfish crackers. Connor loved it and has requested this lunch several times.

I found some Christmas pajamas on clearance for Dallin.

They pretty much made his life.

 For Valentine's Day this year, I didn't make valentines for Dallin's Kindergarten class. Too much effort for not enough appreciation, in my opinion. He chose Avengers cards from the store and we were both perfectly happy about that. Connor, however, was invited to a little Valentines party with some of his pre-school age friends from church, so I helped him make some train valentines to pass out.

I did it because 1) I only had to make 8 valentines, and 2) Connor was so excited about the trains and went crazy gluing hearts coming out of the smoke stacks. Worth it.

 Dallin's class had a fairy tale ball on Valentine's Day. The kids got to dress up as a fairy tale character. Dallin asked to be the big bad wolf and I almost made him this costume. Then I thought about how much time/money it would take, and then I remembered this costume we already had.

He was a dragon. The cutest dragon at the ball.

Connor, who now thinks dressing up in costume is part of Valentine's Day, wanted to wear something special to his party too.

So he went as Superman.

We've been to the doctor more times that I wanted to in the last two months. Once was for Bennett's 2 month check up, so that was to be expected.

He weighed 13 lbs 5 oz and is looking just perfect.

Dallin had a couple of ear infections. More doctor visits and antibiotics.

One morning just after Dallin got to school, I got a phone call that he had fallen while getting off the bus, cut his chin and would need stitches. From what I've gathered, his aid was holding his hand and Kendal's hand, and the Special Ed. teacher was holding Dallin's other hand as he was stepping down. Dallin was distracted looking at the other kids getting off buses, and with his coat hood up, his vision was limited. So when he tripped/stumbled/fell, he couldn't really see where he was going and his hands weren't really free to catch himself, so his face did the catching instead.

Luckily, Mckay hadn't left for work yet when I got the call, so we all drove over to pick him up and took him to urgent care.

He was pretty calm and happy by the time we saw him. 

He was cut badly enough to need three stitches. He HATED having his arms and head strapped down so the doctor could stitch him, but he was fighting so much that it was necessary. After screaming for 10 minutes straight, he was finally stitched up and we could leave.

As I drove him back to school, I told him he should tell his friends how brave and tough he was. His response was "I not tough! I was a little scared."

As for the rest of the month, we've been snuggling with Bennett

 and enjoying the peaceful moments.

The very rare, peaceful moments.

Valentine's Cookie Party

To celebrate Valentine's Day, I hosted a Valentine's cookie party at my house.

I made lots of cookies and my friends brought frosting, sprinkles and candies for toppings. I do mean  A LOT of cookies: 103 to be exact. 

 As soon as I started putting out cookies and toppings, Connor climbed into his seat. 

He was sooo ready to start eating cookies.

He was very good with spreading the frosting.

And we only had to remind him a few times not to lick the knife.

The kids made some really clever creations. My favorite was the cookie sandwich.

And the "everything" cookie.

Some of the kids avoided the chaos in the kitchen and played with toys.

 There were lots of happy faces.

And lots of messy faces too.

She reminds me of the Joker from Batman.

Connor, after shoving his third cookie entirely in his mouth.

 Dallin was really upset when I cut him off from eating frosting.

He's whining and saying, "I want more frosting!"

Remember those felt hearts I was cutting out earlier?

I made a heart garland to hang in the kitchen. I sewed one long line of pink embroidery floss through the felt hearts and hung it up. Super easy and super cute!

I hung some felt hearts from the ceiling by the front door.

I also made cute Valentine pictures of the boys.

These were really easy to make using PicMonkey, my favorite picture editing website.

I'm so in love with this picture of Dallin.

Because I didn't want to be left with tons of extra cookies, I had plastic bags out for people to take home their creations.

Between the 27 people, we managed to polish off the cookies pretty well. I have less than 2 dozen leftover:

I would have taken a picture of the glorious, pink aftermath in the kitchen, but my wonderful friend Deidra cleaned and swept up all the mess. It's nice to have friends. And it also helps to use disposable plastic table covers.

 Dallin was looking forward to this cookie party all week. I told him we were having a party and his friends were going to come. He loves a good party.

And he loves his friend Millie. They love each other a little too much. We have to keep an eye on them or else they get a little *too* close and comfortable. And we have to break them up when they try to kiss in the middle of church.

Ahhh, young love!

Be my Valentine

Dallin got to pass out Valentines in his preschool class, so I made some for him to take to school (using my Cricut :) ).

While I was at it, I figured I'd make some for my piano students and a few other people as well. Pretty soon I was gluing small, intricate shapes on 30 cards.

 This took longer than I expected. 

The back of the card was simple.

I love how they turned out, but I think next year I'll just buy a box of Valentines for Dallin.

For the valentines I was planning to give to my piano students, I attached a piece of chocolate candy to them. And I was dumb enough to leave them out on the kitchen table.

 Connor got to one of them.

 He shoved the whole chocolate in his mouth, foil wrapper and all.

This is him signing "please," asking for more candy.

For our Valentine's Day dinner, I made fondue, same as last year. I made a chocolate silk pie for dessert, which tasted like chocolate flavored butter... in a pie shell. I'm on the lookout for a better recipe.

Dallin loves to help me in the kitchen, especially when I'm making bread dough, pie dough, biscuit dough.... He likes to eat the dough. This time I saved some pie dough scraps just for him. When there were no more dough scraps, he began eating the flour off the counter.

When Dallin sees the picture of himself on the right, he laughs and says, "Slilly!" (i.e. silly)

Happy Valentines Day from our SLILLY family.

Valentine

For Valentine's Day, we had a quiet dinner at home. I made cheese fondue using Neil and Ashley's recipe. Goodness gracious, that stuff was delicious!!! I put in a little too much cheese so it was a bit thick, but very smooth and tasty. I had imagined fondue being difficult to make, but it's pretty easy if you have an awesome recipe to use. If I can make a fondue with a baby strapped to my chest while Dallin unloads the dishes onto the floor, creating booby traps for my feet that I can't see over Connor's rotund body(see above picture for rotundness), and STILL have it turn out all right, I think anyone can handle it.

We ate on the floor on a mat Mckay got in Thailand. To dip in our fondue we had ham chunks, broccoli, asparagus, roasted potatoes, french bread, and apple slices.

And of course, what is Valentines day without a glass of Martinelli's?

Dallin got to join us on the floor. And we let him sit in his good old friend: the bumbo.

Yes, Dallin is already working on multiplication.

We ate and ate our fondue while watching Jeopardy. What could be more romantic than that?

Dessert was a Raspberry Streusel Pie.

Did you notice how I put a little heart on the crust of each piece?

Dallin did.