Valentine's and good weather

Valentine's Day was full of dressing-up and eating a WHOLE LOT OF CHOCOLATE!

Chloe is ALWAYS hugging my belly (aka: baby)

We spent hours outside with our wondrous-glorious-fabulous day of almost 70 degree weather!

The sun was food for our soul! 

Watching a couple movies this week was a must with missing nap-times and playing so hard outside.  They look a little zoney, but they are such cute kids!

"Take her and lock her in her room"

I recently got a new camera that I'm still trying to understand, so I'm frequently getting it out to experiment and figure things out so I can take better pictures.  My first choice, of course, is to take "practice" shots of my kids, however, Chloe let me know in "story-form" of her disapproval of me taking pictures of her.  While talking to 'whomever' she was pretending to talk to, she proceeded to mumble under her breath to them "if you would come and take my mommy away and lock her in her room, she's bugging me with her camera again".
I had to laugh out loud-- which she disapproved of even more.  Oh well, I still enjoyed taking the pictures, whether she did or not :)

Energy to Expend!

Today after walking home from a neighbors house Porter couldn't hold in his excitement that it wasn't absolutely FREEZing outside and that he REALLY NEEDED to expend some energy outside to celebrate the (bit of) warmer weather.
He proceeded to run up and down the sidewalk more than a dozen times, laughing the whole time.  I love this happy kid!

Happy Birthday Chloe ~ 4 Years Old!

After a fortunate snowstorm that delayed Ted's scheduled flight on her birthday, we're able to celebrate all together on her actual birthday! 

Chloe's first birthday wish was to celebrate her birthday with her cousin's. So, after Ted left early the next day, the kids and I headed up to Davenport to celebrate Chloe's "real birthday".

My sister Alexis made the party possible by providing the decorations and games (THANK YOU!)

Per Chloe's request, she wanted a "Pony-Princess" party.  I wasn't sure what she meant by this and finally asked her what her expectations were and what exactly a pony-princess party consisted of.  Thankfully, her reply was, "having princesses and ponies on my cake".  

I can do that.

 

 After looking online for weeks on what kind of cake to do, this was the outcome...

good enough for me.

 The cake was fun to look, but the cake was much more fun to lick and mess-up for the kids!  It was hilarious and pure enjoyment for them

 The finished...FINISHED product.

Daily Fun

This has been one of Chloe's and Porter's favorite activities lately.  Porter gets his head drenched with water and Chloe proceeds to style her little bro's hair. 

 

I love this look of, "I'm not sure I came to the right hairstylist".

At Christmas time I braided Chloe's hair like this and ever since then she asks for her little braids to whip around.

 Porter loves to walk in the snow, he really finds particular joy in squashing snow clumps and kicking snowman.

For Chloe's early birthday present and a Christmas present for Ted, they both got some ice skates!  Iowa is a perfect place to have ice skates, ponds everywhere!  Lucky for us, our previous Branch President has a pond in his yard and he and his family are more than happy to share their frozen pond.  

 While Dad and Chloe were on the ice, Porter was thrilled to find some sticks around Pres. Pence's yard AND to whack the snow with them.

At one of the family's homes that Ted home teaches at, they had these little bats that Chloe fell in love with.  So, naturally Ted came home and made some with his kids.  Dad is the best!