We Love to be a Family Day (aka Valentine's Day)

We celebrated our annual version of Valentine's Day this past weekend. These pictures make me smile. From the home depot stickers that Atticus used on his surprise valentines for everyone, to Phinny's big smile and sparkly blue eyes, to Milayla's excitement that she got to eat her chocolate before breakfast and just all the love that spilled over into this day. 

The kids began the day by running into our room with excitement that you would think was for Christmas. Actually, a few days earlier when the kids woke up to our kitchen decorated in all the hearts that we wrote for each other Atticus proclaimed it was a surprise as lovely as Christmas. Atticus had made some surprise valentines for us. And he and Milayla had made one together that was a proposal for Milayla to sleep on the top bunk. Very cute and very tempting to give in to their plea but Milayla is just a tad too young yet. Love notes from my children will never lose their place in my heart. Special beyond words. In fact, I am sure they will only get sweeter with time as our love and bond grows deeper and stands the test of time. 

From our bedroom it was off to find the first puzzle piece to place on our heart. The kids saw their valentine buckets brimming with love notes. So we took our buckets to the heart filled kitchen to enjoy a waffle breakfast together as our first task of the day. 

The tasks continued on from there. We made cookies, delivered cookies, heart attacked our neighbours and a couple sisters from church that we admire. Delivered flowers. Made pizza. Picked out a selection of fruit for fruit salad. And cuddled up for a family movie night. 

The kids loved getting to draw on the table at breakfast (I had put paper over the table the night before). And (Jason and) I loved hearing the children read all the love notes on the kitchen walls during the week leading up to the day. My heart seriously spills over with joy about it all. When we wrote the hearts for a family home evening I had suggested that we all write one for each person in our family, but everyone just kept going and going. We would have kept going, of that I am sure, had the time not begun getting late. 

It was just a happy day and I am so grateful for all these smiling faces. I loved it all and I get the feeling that everyone else was pretty happy with it all as well. At bed time the kids gushed that they loved the whole day because we spent it together as a family. Now that is a wonderful sentiment from my children to end the day on. 

Milayla opening her valentine from Atticus

Note to everyone from Atticus

Atticus works really hard to sound out words and I love reading his notes

That face. Heart melting.

Pyjamas - yes!

Valentine buckets filled, table ready for waffles, wall covered in hearts (all 4 walls had hearts on them, more than what you see) - ready!

looks like he may keep those blue eyes.

this is what our basement looks like - awesome, right? we decorated our neighbours basement door to keep the cookies out of the -35 temperatures. 

the river on a chilly day. It was breathtaking when we came upon it. the iphone picture just really doesn't do it justice. Beauty in winter is God's mercy, I'm sure. That, and warm homes and clothing and good people to spend the time with. Really, life is just full of God's mercy - that's a topic for another day though.

excited to make her own pizza

no movies for this little guy yet, so he gets to play with Me and Jason (trading off) in the background during family movies. I don't think he minds with a smile like that.

Atticus likes to take pictures for us. Take one.

take two

Yep, we do love to be a family.

Packing up Christmas Decor

We did the New Year clean-up before Jason headed back to work. I sure did leave all those cozy christmas decorations up as long as I could and I think that we all wanted to leave them up just a little bit longer. It was fun to take talk about our favorite parts of the holiday while we took the decor down. Unanimously, everyone's favorite part was the time together. It's things like that that really help me to remember where the priorities really need to be, especially come the holiday seasons.

And then there are the traditions that we always look forward to. This last year I decided to alter our yearly Christmas decoration a little bit. We have typically purchased a new one at a store where we were living at the time. As a result we have some ornaments on our tree from several different cities. This year, however, I felt like it wasn't representing our family as I would like it to. I wanted something a little more memory rich and so I pieced together a few different ideas and came up with the idea of our family pyjama picture from Christmas Eve going in a clear ornament with some key words summarizing our previous year in the back.

It was an instant hit. The kids showed it to everyone that they could. A definite memory maker and memory keeper. Kind of like a little time capsule. Would like to repeat next year.

We also did handprint ornaments for the kids. Definitely a priceless keepsake, though not one I think we will repeat every year. So happy that I took the time to track down the clay to make them though. I'm sure the day will come (far sooner than it feels like now) when those little handprints seem like a distant memory. In truth, if I think about that too much, it makes me pretty teary eyed. I know the future will be great in it's own way, but I prefer to keep focused on making the best of the present while facing the future.

To keep the clean up fun, we enjoyed goofing around a little. We set out the challenge to see all the things we could pretend our tree skirt to be. Milayla was too timid to give it a go so you can see what she helped us come up with.

It was a fun day while still being appropriately reflective. If that makes any sense at all.

Goals 2015

We had a family home evening lesson on visions for our life. We all came up with ideas that we would like to see happen this coming year, including the kids. The big kids insisted that Phineas needed some as well. So he does. We also made some family goals. Some of the pictures and keywords won't make sense to people reading this, but the idea was for them to be triggers for the children (and us) to remember our vision and motivation. The plan is to have them in frames on the wall in our homeschool/play/dining room. They haven't made it there yet.. Meanwhile, we are only one month in to the calendar year and some of those goals we made for family goals and my personal goals are feeling impossibly out of reach. I suppose it's time to start breaking them down into more descriptive, manageable chunks. But to be completely frank, I think I might be a little more lax this month. One small step at a time, I'll get there.

Milayla Wisdom

Milayla: Mommy, I am no longer the Orange Cat (a nickname she insisted on for a while). I am the Baby Chick. And you are the Mommy Chick.

Me: What does that make everyone else in the family?

Milayla: Phinny is the Brother Chick. Atticus is the Daddy Chick.

Me: If Atticus is the Daddy Chick, what does that make Daddy?

Milayla & Atticus (together): The Monster! (meaning the Tickle Monster)

A Conversation with Atticus

Atticus: Mommy, I think Phineas is the happiest person in our family.

Me: He is pretty happy. Do you think the rest of us are happy, too?

Atticus: Yeah, but me, Phinny and Milayla are the happiest.

Me: Happier than Daddy and I?

Atticus: Yes. You are silly. So is Daddy. You are both so silly and always telling jokes. That's why we are the happiest kids.

January Daily Life - part 2

These somehow were missed in the other January photos. Like Jason's blurry picture of gas prices coming below a dollar. Or the home depot workshop. Swim classes. Phineas sleeping next to me and on me. Celebrating Sadie's birthday with her at an indoor play place. And Milayla giving cuddles to her baby brother. Awesome moments.