Valentine's Day with kids and without kids

The first Valentine's Day that I can remember was when I was in first grade.  We made big heart shaped Valentine Mailboxes and passed out Valentines and candy.  For some reason we also had sack lunches with ham and cheese sandwiches in them.  Somehow I ended up with some extra sandwiches.  I remember taking those sandwiches and all my candy home in my back pack.  When I got home my mom divided up the candy and sandwiches between me and my younger sisters.  I still vividly remember how happy we all were as we shared candy while sitting around the table in our tiny kitchen.Ever since then Valentine's Day has been my favorite holiday. 

Last year Brandon was in Korea for Valentine's Day.  So I was very happy that he was going to be around for the holiday this year.  What made it even better was that he got a 4 day weekend for President's Day that included Valentine's Day.   Since Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday I can't just celebrate it on February 14th.  This year it kind of turned into Valentine's Week.  Basically from my birthday on the 7th to the 14th was all Valentine's themed. We had crafts, surprises, a party, romance, and of course adventures! This was actually a very big week so it's there are two parts to this post.  The part that involved the kids - and the part that was just Brandon and me.

Part One - Stuff with the Kids

My birthday flowers looked beautiful all week long.  

One day we tried making some decorations.  They were fun to do, but they didn't turn out that cute. 

Lydia did create a crown with the left overs. 

This wasn't Valentine's themed, but it was cool. Brandon found a baby diamond back rattlesnake by our house.  I called maintenance, but they wouldn't do anything about it unless it was in the house.  It was gone later so hopefully it went back to the woods.

Brandon was told late on Tuesday that he'd was going to drive one of the higher ups around in a Humvee on Wednesday.  He expected to be gone from early in the morning until late at night.  This was a perfect opportunity to do a surprise for him.  So the kids and I went to Walmart to buy him some presents.  Then we went to McDonalds for lunch.  My Aunt Diane sent me some McDonald's gift cards for my birthday.  The kids were happy to go there.

Then we went outside and they played for a long time.   Charlotte and Lydia love to go up to the rocket at the very top of the playground.

Derrick and Veronica went up the stairs with me, but they didn't want to slide.  They were happier just running around and playing on the little kid playground.

After the kids got tired we drove onto Fort Hood and tried to find the jeep.  I thought the Jeep would be parked near the motor pool, but it wasn't there.  I didn't know that Brandon had come back from the field, gone to lunch, and then parked in his usual spot across from his headquarters.  We drove through about seven parking lots before I decided to check his usual spot.  Charlotte and Lydia were so happy to see the Jeep.  We parked and then the twins helped me put candy and hearts inside the jeep.

This reminded me of the stuff I used to do in high school to answer my dates for Prom.  It's way easier to do this kind of stuff when you have a copy of the key because you own the car.

Earlier in the day the kids had drawn pictures for Brandon.  So we put those in the car.  In additnion to the candy we bought Brandon a case of Poweraide, and an extension cord.

Brandon got off work about an hour after I finished decorating.  He was so excited when he saw the surprise.  He loves this kind of stuff.  He left the hearts on the car all weekend.

On Wednesday night we watched our neighbors while their mom and older sisters went to a church activity.  They love coming to our house because I let them climb on the couch and Brandon helps them make paper airplanes.  Charlotte and Arik sat on the ledge and had a contest.  They would throw their airplanes and yell things like, "I got 20, I got 8."

Thursday was the Valentine's Themed Party at the library story time.  We've been going to the story time for the 3-5 age group lately and all my kids do much better with the older group. Charlotte and Lydia love to sit with the group and hear Miss Martha read the stories.

At the end of story time Miss Martha always gets out two bins full of bells, maracas, symbols, and other noise makers.  The kids pick out an instrument and then walk around in a circle while a song plays.  All my kids love it, but they always want me to walk with them.  Well Veronica has broken that cycle.  She is just fine walking in a circle and shaking her bells without me.

 This is her walking by herself a few weeks ago.

And here she is with her bells on another week.  I love her little pigtail in this picture.  She has really long hair on the sides of her head, but not really anywhere else.  For a while I wondered if the twins had cut her bangs - because she doesn't have any.  But no, she just doesn't have any.

After the goodbye song it was time to have treats.  We love all the fun things this library does.  

 On Thursday nights Brandon watched the kids while I get a night to myself.  Usually I go back to the library and work on my travel blog.  But this time I went get a hair cut and then clothes shopping. Before I left I trimmed Charlotte's bangs.  This picture was to show off her bangs, but I also took it so I could sneakily get a shot of Lydia wearing a 24 month size dress.  She wore it all the time last year, but only recently found it again.  I wasn't sure it would still fit her, but magically it still buttoned. She was really excited.

Veronica wanted her picture taken too.  She says, "Say Cheese" when she sees the camera.

And then Charlotte wanted in the picture too.

I loved getting my hair cut and getting some new clothes.  I posted this picture on Facebook as part of my health challenge (I got 15 points for posting it.)  I've only lost about 5 lbs between these pictures, but even that has made quite a difference (as does standing up straight, a new haircut, and trendy clothes.)  I think the biggest place I've noticed changes has been in my face.  I feel like it's a lot slimmer.

In addition to new clothes I also bought new rechargeable batteries.  Later Brandon got out the multimeter and showed the girls the faint charge that was left in the old batteries. 

Brandon was off of work on Friday so we had a little family Valentine's Day party.  I'd picked out balloons for the kids and Brandon bought them candy. 

The girls were really excited about the balloons.

Derrick liked his too.  He kept saying, "loon."

The candy was a hit too.

Brandon and the girls made heart shaped cookies and frosted them.

Veronica had been napping, she was really exited by everything when she woke up.

I'd made sure she was wearing her valentines day shirt.

Our little party was really fun for all of us.

Part Two: Stuff without the kids
After our little party it was time to get ready for the second half of the Valentine's day Week Festivities.  My sister had agreed to watch our kids overnight and all day Saturday so we could get away. Lindsey and her boys arrived after dinner on Friday.  After thanking Lindsey profusely we snuck out and drove down to a hotel in Austin.

From the outside our hotel seemed great, but our hotel room had some issues.  The layout was awesome, but it was dingy and needed maintenance (and some air fresheners).  We didn't care too much though.  Getting away from the kids was great, and a slightly seedy hotel room kind of made it seem like we were having an affair.

Brandon and I NEEDED this weekend.  We haven't had a night a way from the kids since he graduated from Basic Training over two years ago.  Our kids are cute and all, but they take their toll.  The nights during the past few weeks have seemed to be especially hard.  The twins started coming in our bed at night again.  One of them even threw up on my pillow :(.  Derrick has a habit of taking off his pull up at night and peeing in his bed - EVERY NIGHT.  And Veronica has been teething and has turned into a drama queen.  So an uninterrupted night in a simple hotel room was like a exotic vacation.  

In the morning we went to Georgetown to check out a cave that I've wanted to visit for a while.  It's called Innerspace Cavern.

The tour started out by traveling down a man made tunnel into the cave.

Then we went through and checked out the different features.  I was amazed at how elaborate the cave was.  There was chamber after chamber to explore.

I took a lot of pictures and eventually I'll do a post with all the details on my travel blog.  For now I'll just say that it was worth the $19.99 price.

This was probably my favorite area in the whole cave.  What's really cool about this cave was that it wasn't discovered until the 60's or 70's.  So all of it's features have been protected from souvenir hunters.

There was one rock that we could touch.

After we were done with the cave we went down to the State Capitol Building in Austin.  We've been here before with the kids so we didn't go inside the building.  

We did go in the visitor center though.  We found this cool spiral stair case.  (Check out the new shoes Lindsey bought me.)

This is the original star that was on the top of the stature on the capitol.

Then we walked down Congress Street and found a restaurant called Annie's.  The resturant was French.  When our food took a long time to arrive the waitress gave us a free appetizer.  She asked us if we wanted chocolate croissants.  When they arrived Brandon got really exited and said, "It's Pan du chocolate! I had this for breakfast all the time on my mission!"  He said it tasted exactly right.

Our real food was pretty good too.

We had fun checking out the streets in Austin.  Austin is kind of a hipster town.  Brandon and I decided that the whole city reminds us of the Sugarhouse district in Salt Lake.

When we were done with the city we headed to McKinney Falls State Park.  This is another place that I've wanted to visit for a long time.

These are the upper falls.

And the lower falls.

The lower falls had this cool little slot.

It was a hot day so we didn't mind wading in the water to get close to the falls. Brandon took this picture of me because I asked him to.  All day long I felt so happy with how I looked.  I still have a lot of weight that I want to lose, but I'm really proud of what's come off so far.

And here we are together.  We had such a great time.  We don't know if we'll be able to spend our 8th anniversary together so we decided that this day counted in case we are apart in May.

Then it was time to start working our way back home.  We took this picture as we drove past Austin.

We stopped at a Bed Bath and Beyond and for dinner.  We were home around 9:00.  Lindsey told us about her day with 6 kids.  It had been a little rough, but they'd got through it. We thanked her profusely again.

We enjoyed a lazy Sunday morning together until about 10:00 when Lindsey left to go home.  Then the day took a turn for the worse.  We had a lot to do to get ready for church and Brandon and I both ended up feeling pretty stressed.

Church was rough. We had vacation-hangovers and it was tough to get back into parent-mode after our day of freedom.  It was one of those days where we didn't feel edified at church.  Brandon and I were just too busy.  I was the substitute teacher in the girls' primary class. That would have been fine except I also taught my Gospel Principles class.  And Brandon was basically in charge of the nursery because that leader was out of town.  Then we had a Linger Longer.  All four kids finished out the time at church with hysterical crying.  Brandon and I were ticked off at the kids and told them they were all going to bed when we got home.  Charlotte and Lydia beat us to it and fell asleep during the 15 minute drive home.

Everyone had naps - including Brandon and me.  Then we tried again to get the day going right.  But it was kind of a lost cause.  It wasn't until Brandon and I got the kids to bed around 9:30 and then started watching Psych that we felt better about life.  (Psych always helps after a terrible day.)

Even though Sunday was rough we were very happy that we had a great Valentines Day and Valentine's Week.  I'm so glad that I have a great husband, a great sister, and four great kids who will help me celebrate my favorite holiday.