My Funny Valentines

 As the day of Love approached, my monkeys decided we needed to send Valentines to about a zillion people. They set up a valentine factory. They mass produced all kinds of love.

 They also made some sweet boxes to take to school. (Get it? Sweet, because they made candy hearts to cover the boxes. Oh, how funny my kids are becoming!)

One of the monkeys just stacked transformer erasers, rather than coloring on the valentines as per the plan.

If you got an un-colored, non-eraser containing Valentine, blame it on him.

We had home made pizza with heart pepperoni and rice-krispy "kisses" for dinner. Each kid got a few new books too. My favorite part though, was how the boys kept chewing at the kiss shaped rice-krispy. Even though it was huge, and their tummies were FULL of pizza. Finally, pencil handed his chunk of goo to me and said, "I can't eat any more" and Sock was like, "I can stop eating?!" 

This picture is Sock reading to me. My kids are awesome.

(also, you can see their giant chunks of krispy)

Another high-light of this week was actual snow flakes falling from the sky. They lasted only a few moments, and they did not stick, but my kids went crazy.

The Newsiest News

I remember when I started this blog, and I promised to share the newsiest of news with you, my faithful readers. Sadly, what I didn't know then (or perhaps what I optimistically hoped would change) is the now obvious fact that our life is filled with rare patches of news and lots of the regular old everything else.

 Thankfully, the regular old other stuff is cute...

...if sometimes a challenge...

...but we'll keep them just the same.

I don't have worlds of news to share. We cut the boys' hair and my ancient phone bit the dust. I'm debating painting my bathroom, but laziness has won out so far. Pizza remains the family favorite for dinner (and we're having it tonight!) and I think I'm going to try a brownie recipe that includes black beans instead of oil for Sunday game night. I know-- it boggles the mind to keep up with us.

*These pictures are from a random pit-stop on our drive to New Mexico for the BYU game in November.

Fighting the good fight

Why does getting things to work the way you imagined they would SO often feel like a fight?

Sorry, sometimes I just throw out a rhetorical question that relates to too many parts of my life at once.

We're trucking through this new year. 

Pencil and I have been walking with the wagon (and trailer... and a random fire hydrant in this picture)

He has become a delightful little buddy in the last month since the big kids have gone back to school. I don't know if I'm finally appreciating him, or if he's finally getting the hang of being with me, but it's working.  

It's been sweet, like caramel covered brownies with vanilla ice cream sweet, and I'm trying to cling to the moments as they rush past. (Especially because new years and calorie counting has prevented too many brownie incidents from happening in my actual mouth.) 

Really, though, we're all growing into friends here, and I am loving watching it happen. Sunday Night game night has easily slipped into an anticipated and relished tradition at our house. (You could visit and join us any time, but I must warn you that the number of games in rotation is still limited. Sorry! It's getting to be a game I can play in my sleep. Well, loose in my sleep, anyway.)

This is my monkeys having a Lego building and technique discussion over cinnamon toast crunch. I've had to pry them apart to get kids to school on time. It's great and maddening at the same time. How many moms have to repeat and repeat  "Stop playing nicely with your brother!" ? that's what I'd like to know!

The STRESS about moving and house selling and house buying and all the steps there-in still hovers in my periphery. BUT February is beginning and my feet are plodding ever onward, so we'll get there. Residency will end and a JOB will begin, and the details won't get the better of me. Not with all these caramel brownie moments happening like they do. I'll do my best to catch them so that I can share.