Valentines Day

There is so much pressure on making Valentines Day special and romantic.  Ryan and I had our first date 13 years ago on Valentines Day.  Although I love love, I don't need to do a fancy dinner or get roses and chocolates on this particular day.  When a friend suggested we go as couples away for the night I was totally on board!  We spent Valentines day in the mountains and may need to make it an annual trip because it was magical!  First we spent sweet time with the twinkies!  They are such good friends now and just love on each other!

Carter is sometimes the triplets to my twins and I love it!  We had the same outfits on for our Valentines party at school:)

After school parties we took kids to their grandparents and headed out of town.  The Inn we stayed at was the absolute coolest place!  I could move in tomorrow if they would let me...they won't...I asked!

It had so much charm and was so relaxing!

This was the bathroom in our room....I mean seriously how amazing is this?

We had real fire places and Chip had fun making us fires all day!

They cook all the meals for you and we had the entire Inn rented out so we ate together and had a cooking class during dinner.

Here is our whole group.

We sat at a large island off the prep area in the main kitchen and the chef let us get up and help cook and ask questions.  The guys loved this!

After dinner we had cocktails and played games and danced until after 1AM!  We woke up the next morning to cold weather and snow everywhere....like I said it was magical!

Breakfast was delicious!

We ran outside for about 30 sec to take a pic, but it was freezing!

Here is a picture Ashely took of the house as we were leaving covered in snow!  I am seriously counting down he days until we can go back and I promise we will be back!

Snow 2015!

We got two cold weather storms this year.  The first produced ice!  We loved watching it fall and talking about the difference between cold and hot!

We weren't sure if this is all we were going to get this year so we made the most of it!

You can't tell from the picture, but our back yard was solid ice!

This little dare devil loves anything adventurous!

After being pulled around the crunchy icy grass we found the back patio was so much better!!!

A week later we got snow/slush.  Again not the best, but we had to make the most of it!

A hill by our house provided lots and lots of entertainment!!!

My little thrill seeker had a ball!  Graham loved it, but once he got really cold he wanted to be held.

I was tired of running up and down the hill with Ellie and she didn't want to get out of the sled so Graham attempted to pull her down they hill...they got a big laugh out of this!

The neighborhood boys had the best time of all.  After a few hours of sledding all that was left was slush and mud....

 Holden and Ellie raced a lot...he did win every time, but she loves trying to keep up with the older boys!

 Graham and Carter were happiest being held and watching!

This years winter storms do not even compare to last years, but we still had so much fun playing in the snow and having dad home from work for a day!!!

Circus!

We took the kids to the circus a few weeks ago.  We were hesitant and had very low expectations about bringing them, but were blown away with their attention span and excitement! (Don't worry we didn't buy any of these $25 toys!)

They loved the popcorn!

They had no idea what the circus was or what they were about to experience before this pic haha!

I honestly didn't watch a lot the circus because I couldn't take my eyes off them watching.  Their sweet little faces just taking it all in was something I wanted to experience more than watching myself!

The motorcycles in the ball was definitely their favorite part!

The circus was a little under 3 hours and they lasted a little over 2 hours, then they wanted to stand to watch and started to get tired because it was nap time.  We thought they might last 30 min so we were thrilled about 2 hours!

One last pic before we headed home!  So glad we took a chance and went because we had the best time and made lots of memories!  The next time we wore these outfits Graham ran to the back door and said "Cir-ca yah!" as in he wanted to go to the circus again.  Sweet boy:)

1st official trip to the dentist!

The past two weeks have been really hard for our family.  We lost two people we love and have all been sick...throw in a power outage and more sickness and well you can see how that would be a hard two weeks!  We are trying to get back to our routine and just soak up the joy these two kids bring to our lives.  I swear this age is pure happiness.  Everything they do is an adventure and seeing the world through their innocence is a daily gift.  One recent "adventure" was going to see Daddy Dentist for the first time!  We read books and played with gloves while we waited for Daddy!

Ellie was up first!  She kept smiling at her Daddy...her look was a mix between "Daddy why are you wearing those funny glasses?" and "Daddy I am so proud of you".  She truly loves and admires her Dad!

Next up was Bobo.  He was not as into it(just wanted to brush his teeth with his new toothbrush), but was still a great patient and cavity free!

After a clean bill of health,and a melt down because they didn't want to leave Daddy's office, we had lunch at Chick-fil-A!

Dental themed outfits just don't exist so I got Ellie a bow for the special first trip to the dentist!

So proud of these two and especially proud of their Daddy Dentist:)