A Touch Of Tyrell

Valentine's Day is always pretty fun. How could it not be fun with these three! It starts with the tradition of following the trail to your Valentine gift. (P.S. we got a cat. Thats huge news for us. His name is Tiger and he was a stray Aunt Bridget found, nurtured, and then gifted to us.) I didn't take a picture of Jakes... but it included a XL beanie (because he has a massive noggin and all of his other beanies look something like a yamaka on him), a foot cheese-grader thing (necessary for his ogre feet), a large tin of chocolate mints, extra dark Lindor chocolates (he's a big chocolate & chocolate mint lover), and a fun love note.  He left me a pile of my favorite candies (peanut m&m's, the mini Easter Cadbury eggs (yeah, that's how he rolls)), huge bouquet of flowers (that are still beautifully alive), a very bougie (BOO-zhee) puzzle I wanted from a very bougie home boutique store, AND A CAN OF SPAM! because Valentine's day is also my dad's birth...

I hardly have any pictures to prove it, but we had a fun, family valentines day.  I left a heart & candy trail out of each bedroom to their valentines gift. New shoes for the girls, a book for Everett, new sheets & pillows for Jake and lots of candy for everyone.  Jake gave me a cast iron dutch oven, flowers and a book that he made for me. It's really cute and super thoughtful! We had chicken Caesar salad, raspberry Italian sodas & raspberry heart-swirl cheesecake.   The next day Jake and I took a walk around Pecan Lakes and the new queen creek horticulture edible garden.  Valentines is a fun little holiday I've always loved and the kids love exchanging valentines at school.  

Roxy got her first Valentines at dance class on Wednesday. She got two more at gymnastics.  She was all set for her Valentines day party at preschool on Thursday. She passed out Frozen valentines with suckers and brought home all kinds of treasures.   She was especially fond of the ring pop... until she saw how it made her face look, lol! But she quickly got over it :) Everett was less than enthused about Valentines day.  Breckie made 28 different crafty cards. I was impressed at some of her designs. She also decorated her valentines box with cute stickers everywhere.  I was feeling really sick the night before so I sent Jake to be the "Valentines fairy". Each kid had a trail of m&m's from their bedroom door to their candy, a book, and a little stuffed animal from us, a valentines card mailed to each kid from the Berner Grandparents with $2 in it, and a seek-and-find coloring book for each kid from Gr...

One year, I remember my mom leaving a trail of hearts outside of my bedroom door to a Valentines bucket full of stuff.  I've always remembered how special I felt.  She sent a little box full of valentines candy and little toys for the kids. I cut out hearts (a different color for each kid) and made a trail of their toys and candy to their valentines gift from me.   I made them each a little Valentines card telling them how much I love them :) Breckie told me she especially loved me for the lipstick I bought her :) Breckie even woke up Roxy to show her her trail of hearts and candy.  I left Jake a trail of chocolate to more chocolate and his giant Valentines card.  I love my people. Everett is starting to get harder to parent (my parents told me the sweet spot was between age 5-8 and they are right!) but he's still young enough for Valentines day to be fun!  It's also my dad's birthday. He would have ...

I woke up to smelly breath in a discount hotel room followed by a value breakfast at Denny's and a 6+ hour car ride. It was great, it was real, it was our Valentine's day. We were on our way home from Disneyland. While we were gone my mom made sure the kids were taken care of for Valentine's day. She bought Everett Star Wars cards and pencils AND cupcakes to pass out to his classmates. She took Breckie to Kneaders for a heart cookie and bought her paints and her own Valentines to make. I know they had a great time without us. Plus we brought them back some pretty epic gifts from Disneyland. We bought Everett a GIANT stuffed Baymax, Breckie got princess shaped crayons and a coloring book and mermaid tail socks, Roxy got a cute kitty, and we brought Grammy and Great Grammy Mickey Mouse earrings. Breckie scratch-designed each valentine cupcake on her own! The designs are so great! Part of me is bummed we didn't get to celebrate more o...

Jake got back from his campout just in time to take me out for sushi happy hour, walk around the temple grounds, and take me to Dairy Queen.  We gave the kids their valentine gifts Sunday afternoon. Breckie made Jake a card and we gave him Reeses hearts, and they gave me a big box of my favorite chocolates and a super cute card.  It turned out to be a super fun weekend and we hardly had time to miss Jake... even though I complained (incessantly) about the campout before it even happened!

Rhett came home with us Friday after school. The boys dug through their treasures and Rhett shared a ton of his candy with Breckie. Julia brought us Valentine donuts when she came to pick up Rhett because she knew Jake was gone on the campout.  I don't deserve her.  I purposely made a dinner I knew the kids would eat so that they could have a donut.  I wanted to get a picture to send to Julia of them enjoying her treat... and it turned out to be way too perfect and hilarious. 4 pictures later I decided they could finally start eating them :) Breckie had barely taken a bite or two when she realized Everett was done!… and eyeing her donut... …so she scooted it over so he wouldn't eat it... His next best option was to tickle her into letting him eat it. These pictures are gold to me! Thanks Julia for the good memory :)