Valentine's & Soccer

B came home from school with a class note from her teacher a week or two before Valentines.  The note  said the names of all the students and instructed that the children could bring in a Valentine box but there would be no contest that year.  Contest, I thought.  How fancy can a Valentine box get?!  Well, was I in for a surprise.  The night before the 14th  I showed B paper & stickers & boxes that I had on hand and I instructed her how to put the paper on the box and she picked out some embellishments and made her design.  Quick, easy, done and she loves it.  I didn't want to encourage an over-the-top, spend-tons-of- time-on, stay-up-late and get-stressed-out-making-it-fancy box.  Then at school the next day I was completely unprepared for quite the over-the-top boxes.  Airplanes and basketball hoops to name a few.  Since when is Valentine's this crazy?!  Well, I don't know what will happen next year at Valentines, whether my kids will now want over-the-top boxes that will take them hours to make or just a sack with stickers but I'll leave that up to them.  I know for sure that I won't have the shock I had this year!

I surprised the kids this year with balloons & cute paper pads and cookies.  Balloons may not be repeated because two of them were popped within a few hours.  I had too much fun secretly making the cookies though!  J came upstairs just after I had finished and asked what that smell was.  I feigned ignorance and said perhaps cinnamon from oatmeal that morning?  He wasn't convinced and suggested it be cookies.  "Cookies? speaking of cookies how about we eat lunch Backwards today!"  and handed him a different kind of cookie he and I had made on Sunday.  He was appeased but as soon as he was in the door from school & saw his surprise he said, "I knew it!" with a big grin on his face.  

See the cute grin.  I love his smile.

Here's that cute smile again!  We got out the soccer goals!!
THANKS UNCLE T & AUNTIE B!!!

Little Miss Pinky as the goal keeper.  

Little J wanted to play soccer so I initially got out the cones but there were some disagreements about whether an airborne soccer ball went on the inside or outside of the cone.  So, I figured the two goals we got for Christmas would fit downstairs and as long as we had the rule of using a small, soft ball then I would be fine with that.  I got out the goals & got to work putting them together.  We had just enough time for a couple short games before getting little J lunch & off to school.  

Daddy came home and wanted to play too

Fun times on the soccer "field"

Auntie J's Visit from Cali!!

The kids (and everyone really) adore Auntie J.  They had school while she was here but we made the most of her time here regardless.  One morning she & I and the two younger kids went on an explore up Hobble Creek Canyon.  We found some frozen still parts of the creek and played there for a bit and then took a short explore up a trail.  Little J blazed on ahead and was definitely the leader of the pack.

Little A tired out more quickly and once we got to the top of a decent hill she and the clock convinced us to get back home, even though it was a balmy 45 degrees out and sunny.

Where's all the snow?! my sister asked?  We were asking the same thing....it looks so barren!

One of the kids' favorite activities is mini golfing so we decided to take Auntie J and it was even warm enough to play outside.

Speaking of playing outside, we took a trip up to Super Bowl Wall in Rock Canyon one day while all three kids were in school.  Big J was able to take a few hours off work (not hard to convince him of that!) to head up.  It was incredibly warm up here next to the rock!!--especially after the harrowing trip up to the wall.  

Here we are at Alta!!  With the snow being almost non-existent Auntie J was trying to decide if it was worth skiing.  That's when our planned hatched.  Thanks to Big J and his grandma we were able to get up to Alta by 3pm to take advantage of the free after 3 policy.  That way since the lack of snow wasn't really worth skiing on at least we got to go without paying for it. and my sis felt better about bringing her skiis and getting in the snow, or ice as the case was.  We got 5 runs in before the 4:30 closing time and it was super fun.  It looks really warm but on the lift it felt quite cold.  And, I remembered how to ski!!  Yay!  Like riding a bicycle. After we skied we met up with my other sister at Tsunami in SLC for dinner then shopped for a little while before our show, "The Help" started.  The flick wasn't as good as I was expecting so I was a bit disappointed, but it was still ok.  It certainly condensed the 300+ page book that was too long but also otherwise ok.  Auntie J then went with my other sis for the rest of the weekend.  Among these things pictured, Auntie J also took my new bike up the canyon for a ride and we all had fun on the Wii and playing games and going to the park, etc.  We all had fun with Auntie J here!! 

The day after Auntie J left we woke up to about 2-2 1/2 inches of SNOW!!!  So, the kids helped pump the tube up while Big J shoveled.

Sledding at Rock Canyon Park!!!

Snow fun!!!

We built a little snowman; isn't it cute?!  We decided more sledding was more important than finding rocks for the eyes and mouth so you'll have to picture the face.

The kidlets and us all had a blast sledding and B rocked it on the snowboard.