February 22, 2013

Oh sing it from the rooftops!

1. My stint as a single mother is coming to an end. Justin is coming home today AND HE IS NOT LEAVING ON MONDAY. Oh joy. Oh happiness. I have survived all 10 weeks of him being gone. 

2. Fiona is coming for the weekend and Owen and Ashley are coming home.

3. I get to see Nina and Mary tonight.

4. My forced daffodils are blooming. And daffodils are my favorite flower. Well at least until the tulips bloom. And the grape hyacinths. And then the peonies, the irises, bleeding hearts, roses.... okay, I just like flowers. And daffodils are one of the first indicators of flowers to come. 




5. We have had a week full of cousins, Ticket to Ride (a board game that I am a teensy-weensy bit addicted to) and sisterly/cousinly time. 


Rook


Sunshiney Elsie


Girls on the table, eating popcorn that Lily got for a Valentines Day treat from someone at school. 


Elsie-two-ponytails Cotten


When the ponytails come out


What I woke up to the other morning--two girls with a box of comic books cuddled up by the heat duct.


My smiling morning girl


Cousin breakfast at Mom and Dads


February 15, 2013

Happy thoughts

1. Yesterday, Connie P came over, braving our cold germs, to bring us Valentines. Cards and doughnut holes in a sparkly heart bag and a bunch of asparagus for me. Isn't that the sweetest thing? It definitely made our day. Or maybe our week.


Aren't those valentine's adorable? And I am so looking forward to asparagus for lunch. 


2. Today is the last day of school for 9 days. Hooray!

3. Whites are coming up for the week. Cousins, games, noise... oh happiness!

4. We got to see Scott and Geri this week.

5. I am starting to feel normal again. Ignorning the occasional coughing spasms, of course.

February 14, 2013

Hey Girl. I love that you copied and pasted a lot of pictures into this blog post.

My cousin's wife just posted a link to this blog on facebook.

http://www.viewalongtheway.com/2013/02/hey-girl-come-link-up/ 

And it contained a hilarious amount of Hey Girl meme's that are worth seeing.

In case you have never seen a Hey Girl meme.... I am not sure where this started, but people take Ryan Gosling pictures and then write Hey Girl things on them. A cute guy totally getting you. It is funny. Ryan Gosling is sprinkled throughout here, but the idea was to use a picture of your own husband with something you would love him to say. There were tons of funny ones. Ones I wanted Justin to see. So I started copying pasting them into my blog for him. Then decided I wanted to show several of them to different people and.... now I have filled a blog post with them. They don't all apply to me (I have never before lamped a mason jar) but the general, long suffering of Justin for my kooky ideas is the same. And no, I did not do one for Justin. That requires too much brain power. And some of these already say what I would write. But we could all do with cute pictures of Justin... hahaha. I will spare you. But he is a pretty great Valentine to have.

And really, these are all sweet. Women loving their men for putting up with them.

(And I don't have all the links to credit each one. Bad! But if you go to the website I posted up top, you can find them all from there. )



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    upcycling ideas - heart mini muffin tin ice cubes  5ff03efc-ffad-4a7e-903d-6f543f3b9675_zpsef6295d0



 Thrift Store Date Hey Girl
Needless to say, this one is a favorite of mine.

 DIY Haircut Coupons Hey Girl Dinner Hey Girl

Matter of fact, this girl had a lot of funny ones. I think we might be on the same wavelength.

hey girl 2hey girl 3 heygirl4heygirl5 heygirl1 hey girl      
Hey Girl: At Home on the Bay
Hey GirlHey Girl 2 
Mr. Magpie Says Hey Girl via Cottage Magpie Hey girl, why would you shave your legs? Summer is months away.
 

It's beginning to look a lot like Valentine's!

Despite our disgusting sickness of coughs, colds, and miserableness, we still are excited about Valentine's Day! I love Valentine's Day. Justin and I don't make a huge deal out of it, but I just love all the love-y-ness. And yes, I know it is over commercialized and has now been deemed meaningless. But all the same, I like it. I like hearts. I like doilies. I like old, corny valentines. I like new, funny valentines. I like pink and red. I like the girls getting Valentine's ready for school. I like seeing them planning Valentines for Daddy. I am a sap.

But a happy sap. I mean, hey! it is Valentine's Day. And I am getting my sense of taste back, which means I can actually eat the chocolate truffles I have sitting in my fridge. Which I found on Smitten Kitchens blog by doing a google search on truffles. I got up from my rest on Sunday thinking I needed to make truffles. So I did. Even though I didn't have the $97 for a six pound block on Amazon chocolate specified. I used unsweetened. And then threw in a quarter cup sugar into the cream. And then worried that they wouldn't be sweet enough, so added some sugar to the cocoa you roll them in. For not really following the recipe  they were really good! I added a little kosher salt to the sugar/cocoa coating, and I think it was a great addition. But then I like a bit of salt in my chocolate.

But back to Valentines. Which started yesterday afternoon, when we descended on Mom and Dad's to clutter things up with all our mess. My Uncle Scott and Aunt Geri were there, so it just seemed silly to stay at our house doing fun things when we could do fun things where Scott and Geri were. Since we haven't seen them in a long time.

I didn't bother going to Wal-mart for Valentine's this year. I had cardstock paper, and when the internet has such cute printable valentines for free, why pay money for ones I don't like as much? The links to these valentines are below them if you want some cute, free valentines for yourself.


Orianna somehow convinced Olivia to cut out her valentines. Orianna used these ones... 

Peptogirl Valentines



Lily cut her own out, but Tori trimmed them up for her. Which was probably as much work as cutting them out right to begin with. Lily wanted these ones...

free valentines




And then both of them used these ones for their teachers and Olivia, who volunteers in Orianna's classroom.

Be_mine_2


Aren't they adorable??? And they are all there, free for the taking. Kind, generous, blogging souls that they are. 



Orianna addressing hers


Valentine work


Rice Crispy treats or is it Krispy? Then we had to put sprinkles on them. Because the girls love sprinkles.


They told me there was no way I could get 43 hearts this size out of that much Rice Crispies. Ha! I got 47. The leftover bits stick together to form hearts too. But there were none leftover, which was a little sad. 


Cleaning out the bowl.


Mom, Scott, and Geri listening to the Farm of Yesterday by the Gibson Brothers. Here is a youtube of it. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehx6vJincww I know I wrote about them awhile ago. But they grew up locally and... well... being a farm kid, I love this song. 



My poor, sick girlie


Still working away


Olivia got a box of Olivia the pig valentines from a friend, so she decided to make them out for kids in Orianna's class. 


Doesn't she look pathetic?


Orianna's imperfectly perfect cutting job.


Elsie was fussing while Dad held her, so he took out his harmonica and she quieted right down. For a little bit anyway. 


And then she fell asleep. 



Isn't she perfect?


This morning, getting ready for school.


Orianna twirling in her heart skirt. I made matching ones for Cheyenne and Breanna, so this is their cousin skirt. 



Dancing around the living room while waiting for the bus. Most mornings are a little rough, but they woke me up 15 minutes before my alarm to tell me it was Valentines Day. And then did everything I told them to while maintaining a steady stream of happy, anticipatory chatter. So it was a good morning!


My sweet little Valentines.



And a large version of them. For some reason Blogger made all my pictures huge, so I went through and changed them back to normal. But I liked this one big. 


Lily's bookbag. Which is Valentine-y.


And the flower's I bought myself. Justin generally buys me some, but I like a lot of flowers and flowers that last, so I told him I would rather buy my own flowers this year. Since he isn't here anyway. And so I got these. Two bunches of white mums and a bunch of Gerbera daisies. I thought the red Gerbera Daisies would make it look a little Valentine-y, but really, they look a bit Christmas-y. But they make me happy. So Christmas or Valentine, they are red and white and bright and cheery. And what more could you ask for on a grey-ish winter day when you are coughing too much and going through kleenex at a rapid pace?

And since I didn't get this post up until this afternoon, here are some pictures of the girls and their school Valentine loot. 


But first, Gilbert with his banjo. This is an old wooden racket from Mom and Dad's. Originally from Parkers I think, since it has Parker written on it. He loves this thing. And strums it enthusiastically. Occasionally he whacks people with it and loses his banjo for an unspecified amount of time. Mostly when I remember to give it back to him. 


Lily and her cheerios Valentine box


She wanted to be sure I took a picture of this one. 


Doing her happy dance


across the living room


Orianna. And Elsie. These next pictures look practically identical, but if you look closely, you will see how Elsie is progressing incrimentally from the carpet to the wood floor. She is totally almost crawling. 






And that is it. Are you Valentine-d out now? Hope you have a heart-y pink and red day!