We have had a lot of fun this past week! I’ll start with Valentine’s Day festivities and then hit some of the other things.

This past Friday was Valentine’s Day, but we started partying the night before. Our library hosts some pretty fabulous events, and this one might be my favorite. It was called The Tall and Small Princess Ball. In the past it has been The Daddy Daughter Princess Ball; but perhaps Carter isn’t the only brother and I’m not the only mom who have gotten left at home and felt a little bit bummed about it, because this year it was open to the whole family!

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Anyway, the ball included everybody getting to pick out a crown and decorate their own magic wand, light refreshments–including crown-shaped cookies, fruit kebabs, pink lemonade, and little sandwiches–dancing, and a production put on by an impressive assortment of Disney princesses. There was occasion for us to wait in line to meet said princesses; but we opted to take the kids home and put them to bed.

Some of my favorite memories from the ball include:

• We had gone out to dinner before the ball, but talked about how we were getting ready for it on the car ride home. When we got in the house, I tried to take Helen up the stairs to get dressed, and she was beside herself. I couldn’t tell what was wrong until she cried, saying “ball!” After I told her we were going to get her in a pretty dress for the ball and then go, she was all smiles again. She also declared joyfully “ball” multiple times throughout the evening.
• Portia kept requesting to be spun around while we were dancing. It was so cute to watch her giant smile as we spun.

It was a ton of fun to be there altogether as a family, dancing and singing, etc. Plus, we saw lots of friends there. We actually even saw our dental hygienist who, though not from West Jordan, had seen the event advertised and brought her kids. That was a fun surprise.

The next day was Valentine’s Day! The kids were so excited to have received valentines from both sets of Grandparents! We started the day with strawberry oatmeal (pink) and strawberry milk (also pink), and a balloon for each of the kids. Fay and Carter had their Valentine’s parties at school and both came home loaded with cards, treats, and other fun things (Carter got a water-color paint-set and a Valentine’s puzzle in a fabric bag)!

That evening, we had a fancy dinner on a fancy table with a fancy guest, Mary!

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Our menu consisted of fresh asparagus, mini beef-wellingtons, and fancy mashed potatoes. For dessert, we had this:

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The food was yummy, and it was so fun to celebrate with Mary! I also made Mary earn her dinner by doing me a favor.

I have a new sewing project as of late, which is making seasonal aprons. I love celebrating holidays and seasons throughout the year, and I like that you can enjoy seasonal decor, etc. for the season and then just put it back in it’s bin until next year. I also liked the idea of aprons because you can get away with more exciting patterns on your fabric than you can with just everyday clothes.
Anyway, what I needed Mary’s help with was my Valentine’s Day apron. I found this super cute style of apron on Etsy and thought it was perfect for the V-day apron (each apron will have a unique style). The only problem is that it calls for a natural waist. I’m severely lacking in that department right now and Mary’s got a killer waist, so I asked her to do it for me. She looked GREAT in it! Though I apologize for the poor white balance in the picture.

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Thanks Mary!!! I just love how ultra-feminine it is! I am SO excited to be able to wear it all next February!

It was a fun and LOVEly day! But we have also had the privilege of enjoying the love all month thanks to the mantel!! I am really pleased with how it turned out this time around!

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Another fun thing from this week was thanks to some personal revelation I received this past Sunday during ward conference. I feel like sharing it, so I will. (If you don’t feel like reading a novel, just skip down to the next paragraph that begins with the word “Anyway.”)

We have been struggling to get in a really good routine for our family Come Follow Me study. We have tried doing it on Sundays, Mondays, other days during the week, etc. I felt like I needed to have done my own study of the chapters before we talked about them as a family; and I felt like we had to discuss lots and lots of the stuff in each chapter. And all that should be done before church on Sunday, so the kid were prepared for their lessons. But that was really hard to manage every week on a certain day; and so we had absolutely no routine, and some weeks we probably didn’t discuss it at all.
Anyway, in ward conference, the theme for the second hour for adults was ministering, specifically in our homes. One sister quoted President Hinckly on Family Home Evening (which had also become a non-habit at our house as we tried to figure out Come Follow Me). One thing he mentioned in the quote was gathering your family together to read the scriptures, learn the Gospel, and have a good time. At that moment, I remembered the revelation I received years ago that turned our “Family Home Evening” into “Family Party.” We want our kids to have wonderful memories of time we spend together, and we felt like having a party planned out for every Monday was going to help us get closer as a family than just forcing the kids to sit down and listen to a 20 minute lesson. I knew we needed to return to family party being a routine on Monday evenings.
The next lesson in that meeting was on Come Follow Me, specifically, and what it looks like in different homes and circumstances. I feel like our nightly family scripture study is really good, and that the kids learn a lot from it, and I don’t ever want to give that up. But Come Follow Me is also a big blessing; but it doesn’t have to be every single bit of what’s in the manual to be a blessing–especially when our kids are so little. So, I felt the Spirit directing me to simply take our little lesson (which we have always had with Family Party) from the Come Follow Me reading for the week.
Shazam! Come Follow Me feels doable, and even exciting!

Anyway, all that leads up to our Family Party from this past Monday. Another bit of revelation I received regarding Family Party was that we should give each family member, in turn, the opportunity to decide on the activity (and eventually the lesson as well) for the week. This week, Fay decided on a talent show!

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Josh set up fancy lights and a stage, and each person got to do a talent! Josh’s talent was being the MC (he had fun voices and music and sound effects to go with, and it was tons of fun!); my talent was reading poetry like a hipster; Fay’s talent was playing some songs on the piano; Carter’s talent was playing with Charlotte (he genuinely is very good at that); Portia’s talent was “dance all over the stage to ‘Don’t let the Dogs Out'”; Helen’s talent was turning around and around in a circle to music. It was so much fun! And we even had a great lesson beforehand that came from Come Follow Me!

Yesterday, Saturday, everyone wanted to do “a fun thing.” Since it was cold outside, we tried to think of something to do inside. We ended up going to Scheels and riding the ferris wheel (except for Helen and me, because she is too short and I am pregnant).

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We also just looked around the store at all the fun sporty stuff, let the kids play on the playground they have, and had lunch at the little cafe. It was so happy! Last night, we got a movie from the library and watched it with popcorn. Movie nights with popcorn make the kids’ lives!

It’s so nice to have these little fun things to break up the routine a little! And speaking of fun things, I’m looking forward to starting on my Saint Patrick’s Day apron pretty soon. Maybe I’ll actually be able to wear this one. 🙂

This post is just to capture this moment in the history of our family. So no story, really. Just pictures with explanation.

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We had a snow day this past Monday and the kids had SO much fun just playing at home. One thing Carter really wanted to do was make an aluminum-can phone. They had lots of fun with it, even though they had a hard time actually hearing each other through it. I think it worked the best when you could seal the can all the way around your face with your hands. But their faces and hands were too small, so I was the only one who was really able to do it. Still lots of fun, though!

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This is just Portia being herself. We went to King Buffet (an Asian buffet) last Saturday to start our fast on. I had gotten myself a plate of dessert and brought it back to the table. Portia saw it and said “I want a plate with that exact thing on it.” And then she essentially just claimed my plate as hers. Good thing she’s so cute!

And then there’s Helen.

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Helen is at that age where she is just a riot all the time. Above, she is enjoying one of her favorite pastimes: peeling an onion. She and Portia are both actually really good at it!

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Helen is passionate about several things. One of those things is her fuzzy, footed pajamas which she calls “meow.” (She does that because once I was putting on some fuzzies that had cats on them. I said “Look, kitties! Meow!” and ever since then all fuzzies have been “meow.”) Another thing she is passionate about is baths. In this picture, she had just been removed from a delightful bath with Portia, put into clean jammies, and then–unwisely–ignored for a moment. If Portia was still having fun in the tub, then Helen wasn’t going to miss out! She climbed in, “meow” and all, and was then very distraught when she discovered that she and her meow were now soaking wet. Portia was amused. 🙂

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This picture is just such a good depiction of our life with Helen right now. Here she is, having climbed up onto the table and dumped out all the cheerios. She is also wearing a dress she had already worn multiple times over the clothes that Josh had picked out for her, because she insisted on it. Each element of this situation is just so typically Helen right now.

I love these cuties so much! It is so fun to watch them be exactly who they are at this moment in their lives.