valentine's day!

we had such fun celebrating valentine's day!  i remember always loving this day when i was younger.  all of the excitement of the valentine mailboxes and goodies.  

we spent the week before valentine's day doing crafts, making our mailboxes and making all sorts of fun heart-shaped food and treats.

i kept with my same valentines that i have been making since ethan was in his 3-year old preschool class.  one of ethan's classmates has all 3 saved and up in her room.  her mom, a good friend of mine, took a picture of them and i love seeing the progression.  i figure i'll keep them up as long as my kids will let me.  ;)

thursday instagram round-up

happy valentine's day!  our week has been filled with all of the preparations and excitement of the holiday.

the princess of the house.

my guy is loving gymnastics!

love.

hard at work.  this puzzle is HARD, but miles did it almost all by himself.

yummy paleo chicken + zucchini lasagna

tire swing!

dinner made with love.

thursday instagram round-up

getting back into this.  our weeks since christmas break have been filled with my busy-ness at school and work.  but we've been trying to get in some downtime when we can.

enjoying the warm weather.

momma + miles lunch date.

legos.  a common evening activity for him.

first seven miles in my new shoes.

my big boy after his morning assembly.

celebrating 100 days of school by exchanging 100 pennies for a gold dollar.

still celebrating 100 days of school on day 101.  love this guy. 

partying ninja style!

ethan's request this year for his party theme was lego ninjago.

there was lots of great party inspiration out there for this theme.  i went with kind of an asian theme similar to the anders and ruff party shown here.  with the craziness of the holidays and unpacking from the ski trip, i was worn out and, gasp, not as excited about putting everything together.  luckily i had done a lot of the prep work and ordering before christmas set in so i just had to put everything together.

we had his party at the local gymnastics place again.  lots of fun and lots of kids!

the candy bar was definitely the hit of the party and so easy to do.  i normally end up with tons of goodie bags left over since i always want to make sure i have one for each kid that comes.  this time i decided to forgo that and do something that required a lot less preparation.  thanks to bamboo organizers from the container store, lots of colored candy and cute chinese take-out boxes, the candy bar went off without a hitch.  

we had a great time celebrating my oldest's special day...on the way home he was already planning next year's theme (a boy after my own heart...)

happy birthday to ethan.

SIX years old!  

i can't believe the little guy that decided to make his entrance to the world in texas was SIX last month.  as always, we celebrated his day in colorado in the snow.

he was so very excited about turning six and skiing, of course!  the boys had spent the previous two days in ski school and had been doing really well, so we decided to take them out ourselves for the day.  we expected a long morning followed up with lunch and then back to the house.  turned out our boys were really ready to ski and we were out until the lifts closed.  it was such fun to have our little ducks in a row going down the hills.

we took our first family trip up the red lady lift.  it is one of the bigger lifts and opens you up to a lot of other ski runs.  the kids did great on it.  the only one scared was me.  

after a long day of skiing, we had lego cupcakes and presents.  mimi and grampies were even able to facetime in.  was a perfect party and a great way to celebrate ethan.

pecan picking.

last weekend we went around town to gather up some pecans that we hope will eventually turn into trees at our final house.  each family member picked three pecans and we put them into our marked bags.  we read up on pecan planting on the osu website and hopefully our little guys will survive in our refrigerator until spring.