Valentine Fun

Whew! What a holiday. As I scan the counter today and see all the candies, cards, cookies and chocolate it makes me think we got as much as on Halloween. That's saying a lot! We had a great few days getting ready and enjoyed the big day together. Of course there were some tears shed when we ran out of "girl" Valentine's- they insisted that we buy fairy cards to hand out to the girls. I thought that was very interesting that the boys are so aware- and I had to nearly tie them to the kitchen chairs to get them to finish writing the names on the cards, but thankfully it all came together.The fun really began on Wendesday the 13th. We were home with the snow day and got a surprise knock on the door. There was a delivery man bearing gifts. Talk about a wintery day pick me up! Thanks Grandpa and Grandma Blackhair/Rich's Mom and Dad!

FYI- The boys had 12 grandparents when they were born so they started making up descriptive names for them- Rich's mom has black hair, Grandma Whitehair means Great grandma Nance, Grandma in a wheelchair- Great great grandma Beardall, Grandma and Grandma with the train- Great grandma and grandpa Hansen, Grandma with Legos- Grandma and Grandpa Larsen, Grandma and Grandpa with the toys under the stairs- Great grandpa and grandma Jackson and My mom and Dad was Kurt's (my little brother) Mom/Dad. The names make me laugh!

We loved the delcious fruit basket and gobbled it up in one day! Brynn and Kaitlyn were really good at licking the items and then feeding it to someone else. Yum!We opted for pencil Valentine's this year and decided to be lazy and only put the boys' names on the "From" part. I thought it would make the whole thing faster, but we were still writing after an hour. I am sure the TV blasting Fairy Odd Parents didn't speed up the process.Thankfully we made these cute Valentine mailboxes from Michaels last year for school and saved them. I happily pulled them out from the top of their closet and we checked two of the projects off the list. I threw together some treats for the neighbors
and mugs for the teachers. Finally when everyone was asleep I wrapped up a few goodies for my little bunch. The holiday started off with a bang. We had to drag them out of bed since they hadn't been to school since Monday. They were asked to wear red to school. The girls spied their treats as soon as them came downstairs. Brynn used her razor sharp teeth to get the heart open. She was so excited she wouldn't sit still to get dressed.
Kaitlyn proudly show off her bunch of suckers. They looked better than they tasted.Then off to school we went to surprise the boys for lunch. I have learned it's better to not tell them you are coming because I am usually a few mintues late and they are dissapointed when I'm not there. This way they are excited no matter when I arrive. Luckily we were on time today. They had heart shaped nuggets and heart cookies. It was fun to see all the red in the lunch room with little bits of pink on a few girls. Trey shared his chili with Brynn. She ended up wearing more than she ate. When they got home, they loved how crammed full their mailboxes were. The girls just loved all their new candy options!
Josh even made Rich and me this sweet Valentine. I loved it.
The mailman again came bearing gifts. We got a package from Salem. Thanks Mom and Dad! I have eaten way too many miniature candy bars! And Matt about hyperventalted when he saw the Imaginext toys he had left in Utah tucked inside the box. It was perfect. We also got a card from Grandpa and Grandma Larsen, a few from friends and Grandma Nance sent us McDonald's dollars. She has done this for over ten years and it's one of my favorite Valentine traditions. I usually use it on a family ice cream run.While I snapped a few pictures of the girls, I came into the kitchen and found Josh like this.Remind me to NOT give them large Hershey Kisses next year!When Rich got home we loaded up the van and headed to the "beans place" aka Qudoba. Matt had a near melt down when I ordered a child's taco instead of burrito like Trey and Josh, but after bribing him with an extra brownie if he finished he downed his entire meal and half of the shreaded beef from my salad. And for the first time in my life one of my children ate lettuce. Brynn was shoving in handfuls of my salad and I was shocked that she swallowed. The best part was that we didn't spill our entire 32 oz. lemonade like last time and the boys only chased each other across the restaurant just once. You can see why we avoid fancy places all together!When we got home Trey begged Rich to open his gift. Kaitlyn got a hold of it and ripped half of the wrapping paper off. Trey used one of the girls blanket and wrapped it up in that. They were so excited for him to get an iPod docking station so THEY can listen to their music. The girls enjoyed Valentine's Day and staying up late watching Stanford battle Arizona State while we folded laundry (how romantic!). And in the spirit of keepin' it real I had a MAJOR laundry disaster as I ran my fifth load of the day. After I accidently washed Brynn's jacket that was smeared with chili with the lunch sticker still stuck on, I found I had backing all over it. I put way too much Oops cleaner to remove it and had to wash the little batch of whites three times to get rid of the cleaner stench and from keeping her from getting high when she wore it later. I obviously over did the soap just a bit! At least I have a very, very clean floor now.
I got the best gift of all. Rich penned the nicest, sweetest card, which read like a blog entry (he knows me TOO well!). It was perfect, very perfect. Thanks to my best Valentine ever!

Much love from the Jacksons! Happy Valentine's Day!!