Happy Valentine's Day!

Last Sunday we went for a walk down to the river. The water level was super low. Kim took this picture from about where the water line would be in the summer

 It wasn't as cold as he made it look

 The kids have been enjoying the warm weather and the remaining snow. This is the snow cave that grandpa made at Christmas time. It is now completely gone ;( I guess grandpa needs to come back and make a new one

 Our grass will never get too long with this guy around

 Our sweet little girl with all of her terrible lizards

 Waiting for me to come home at the end of the day

 I let Kim take an evening to go shopping by herself and she came back with summer and fall wardrobes for both kids and only spent about $150. She is amazing!

 A rare moment

 Here is Kim at 20 weeks

 This little boy can be so adorable

 Our ward's weekly play group had a valentine exchange on Friday and Kim helped the kids make some bags to put their loot in. This was the inspiration for Lyza's bag 

 Here she is adding her own special touch (i.e. coloring it all in green)

 When Nixon concentrates hard he sticks out his bottom lip and it looks really cute

 Final product (notice the marker on his face)

I am not sure what happened to Lyza, but here she is sporting a face band aid

 They had lots of fun at the valentines exchange, although neither of them would take off their jackets

 They also had lots of sugar 

 Sugar crash before nap time

 On Friday the kids helped Kim make sugar cookies

 This horsie is getting too old for this 

 On Saturday morning Lyza and Kim went to a primary dance party. Lyza was a pro at the limbo

She also loved to fight with balloons with her friends

 While the girls were gone Nixon and I worked and played outside. We were too busy to take pictures, but suffice it to say, we had lots of fun

In the afternoon during Nixon's nap I did some more work outside and put in some edging and fabric next to the house to make a little shrub bed later. 

I think that was the first time I have done landscaping in mid-February before

Lyza and Kim decorated cookies

 I am excited to eat all/most of these 

That's all for now, take care!

Getting older isn't too bad if you are with the right people

Last week we took a walk together as a family and the fresh air was amazing. This little guy insisted that he only walk on the snow, not matter how high or uneven it was.

 We have seen a very welcome change in Lyza since she turned 4. She has always been a good girl, but she seemed to mature over night when she turned 4. Of course she is still a 4 year old, but she is much more helpful and reasonable lately. It is especially fun to watch her try and help her little and much less reasonable brother

 She gets excited to help her mom with different projects and activities and is really good at helping make jam

 This little guy loves getting all his winter gear on and whining to go outside. That usually means he has wicked hat hair from putting his toque on and off all day

 Kim had an ultrasound appointment on Thursday and we found out baby #3's gender. Kim found out at the appointment and surprised us with gender reveal eclairs later in the day. Pink filling means a girl and blue (or slightly green) filling means a boy

 I don't think Nixon understands what is going on and about to happen, but he sure liked the eclair

We didn't get great pictures from the ultrasound, but here is my favorite of our squished little boy

I said before that Nixon loves getting his winter clothes on and I meant it. Looking at this picture you would think it is 20 below in our house. Silly little boy. 

 This train set sure has its moments

 Kim made some bubbles for the kids to play in one day. Lots of fun...

 ...until Lyza got some in her eye. Sad

 I had my birthday yesterday. I got a yummy breakfast and then told the kids that I would take them outside to play while I did a fence repair, cleaned the yard up, took down the Christmas lights, and replaced the headlight bulbs for my car. Kim suggested that I open my gift first

 I got a new tool set that came in handy for that repair and yard clean up (the drill for the fence repair and a reciprocating saw for the yard clean up). Thanks!

 Kim and I got the kids a babysitter and went to a movie together in the afternoon. We saw The Finest Hours and loved it

Kim and I need to go to more movies. We watch lots of movies at home, but there is something different about watching a movie in a single sitting during the day versus watching it in 3-4 nights because we are too tired to watch more than 20-30 minutes at a time.

We came home and shortly after this little guy woke up from his nap. So cute!

 I requested pizza for dinner and this fine group was up to the challenge

 They are a well oiled pizza making machine and made the most amazing Hawaiian pizza ever

 Later we had Skor trifle (death by chocolate) 

Kim had a hard time getting the candles lit because Nixon kept blowing them out

 Lyza also made me this adorable birthday card. She was really concerned that I wasn't having a dinosaur birthday like she did.

Thanks for the birthday wishes, I had a great day

Take care