A Day at the Fair Grounds

The Stock Show and Rodeo are a big deal here. For the first year since we moved here, we decided to skip the actual rodeo and just take the kids to the fair grounds. Last Sunday Sophie got to go to the rodeo with some friends at the last minute. On Tuesday her field trip was snowed out, but thankfully they were able to reschedule it for Thursday. Unfortunately, that was the day we had told the kids we would take them to ride some rides in the evening. So we had a full day there.

Sophie had a great time on her field trip, especially riding the school bus there and back. When Taylor got home from work that evening we picked up our friend Cody and headed back out. The kids loved every minute of it.

Another Snow Day

Yea! No school today!

John Curtis ate the snow the entire time.

Building her snow penguin

Hiding from the camera

Sophie wanted to make an entire zoo of animals, but her hands were getting too cold. All we got was a penguin.

Warming up by the fire with a movie, popcorn and hot chocolate

Back out after rest time and still eating snow

Snow ball fight!

Snow Ice Cream

Full Disclosure: I wasn't one of the forward thinking moms who put the bowl out to catch the snow this morning when it was really falling. However, since my kids were already eating the snow off the ground I thought, "Why not?" I did scrape it off the top of the pile on the table outside instead of off the ground. We wouldn't want any of Gracie's special chocolate treats in our ice cream.

Happy Birthday Taylor!

A Valentine Weekend

After spending the last week doing a little whining and complaining (okay, maybe a lot) about not being able to go out due to church responsibilities, my weekend turned out quite nice. When Taylor took Sophie to the dance on Thursday night, Miss Cindy and Mr. James came to stay with John Curtis and I got to spend a wonderfully long and uninterrupted dinner visiting with my dear friend, Leia.

Friday night was Parents' Night Out, the best Friday night of the month. However, on this particular Friday the church had also scheduled a Point of Grace concert and Taylor needed to be there. I like Point of Grace just fine, but I treasure Parents' Night Out and really wanted to go to dinner with my husband and see the movie, Valentine's Day. So, being the godly pastor's wife that I am, I whined to my husband. Maybe to get me to shut up or maybe just because he loves me, he scheduled a date for us on Saturday night. He lined up one of our teenagers to come over and watch the kids and bought tickets for the movie. Then we got a call Thursday night that Point of Grace would not be able to make it to San Angelo due to all the snow in DFW. I really did feel bad about this. A lot of people were looking forward to this concert. But, Parents' Night Out was still on so we had another wonderfully long and uninterrupted dinner (made entirely by Taylor) at our house with friends and watched the movie, 17 Again.

Then the weekend got even better. The church had scheduled a work day for Saturday that was cancelled due to the ground being so wet. So instead of being home alone with the kids all day, we all got to spend the day together. We pretended like Saturday was Valentine's Day.

We started the day with a breakfast of bagels with strawberry cream cheese, strawberry jam in the shape of a heart, and a heart shaped strawberry on top, oh, and strawberry milk. We had a theme going.

Sophie loves crafts so we got them a few Valentine crafts to work on

Valentine Door Hangers

When Taylor was fixing lunch I was impressed to see him cut the strawberries into little heart shapes. He really doesn't like Valentine's Day, but he got into it anyway.

After rest the kids painted little frogs.

Sophie's

J.C.'s

Then for snack we had layered Jello hearts. It brought back fond memories of my Mom's rainbow Jello

I know you're thinking the day couldn't get much better than heart shaped Jello, but it did. Taylor scheduled me an hour long massage for that afternoon. This really had nothing to do with Valentine's Day, but we had decided at the New Year if we could work out for 6 weeks straight we could both get massages. He was nice enough to schedule mine for me. I didn't take pictures of this though:) Our date was wonderful, too.

This morning's church service was great and Sophie's little choir performed. We had a great lunch with friends (thanks for the gift card, Grammy) followed by a very restful afternoon.

So though I will never tell my kids this, perhaps whining does pay off. Just kidding. I really did feel bad and promise to never whine again;)

Valentine Party

Family Fun Magazine inspired us to make our own Valentines again this year.

Sophie traced and cut out the hearts herself and wrote the names on them.

For her Valentine party the kids decorated cookies

Time to get our Valentines!

Daddy/Daughter Dance

Last night was one of Sophie's favorite nights ever. She went to her first dance and had a great time. She and Daddy got dressed up, we painted her nails, and I even let her wear a very special necklace. The picture below is a very blurry one of Taylor surprising me with a ruby necklace (Sophie's birthstone) the week she was born.

This is what she looked like then.

This is what she looked like last night.

I wore this necklace all the time until I had John Curtis. Then Taylor got me a necklace with both of their birthstones, so I put this one away for her until she was older. I thought tonight was a fitting occasion for her to wear it.

I couldn't believe how grown up she looked.

After Taylor took Sophie out for Chinese food they met the Barkers and danced the night away.