Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's to all of our loves out there!

This crazy girl, along with her brother, helped make our Valentine's Day backdrop. 

We took empty toilet paper rolls and smooshed them into the shape of hears to make stampers then stamped a giant piece of paper with red, white, pink, and purple hearts.

I planned on taking sweet, smiling pictures of my first Valentine... but she had other plans.

Scary faces for a holiday all about love. 

Then this happened!

A dress with polka dot leg warmers.
Lots to love about this. ha!

 While the kids were in the tub, I set up the backdrop outside of the bathroom.  

It was Greta's turn.  All sorts of cuteness in the following pictures.

I have to get out my camera and have more photo shoots with this one.  Darn it, she's cute. 

Sending lots of LOVE your way this Valentine's Day!

Making Valentines

We did some Valentine crafting leading up to the big day.  We made marbled hearts that turned out so cute we decided to send them to some people to brighten their Valentine's day.

We started with shaving cream on a paper plate
and put a few drops of food coloring in the shaving cream.

You swirl the food coloring around to make a marbled look.

You dip your paper - in our case I had pre-cut hearts out of computer paper.

Then you carefully lift your paper out of the
shaving cream.

Next, use a flat scraper of some sort to scrape off all the extra shaving cream. 

Viola! This is what you end up with!  

When you're done... SMOOSH IT!  After all, what good is a shaving cream
activity if you can't feel it squish through your fingers.

When the valentines were dry, I backed them onto construction paper to make them a bit more durable and look more complete. 

We sent out 10 valentines.  On each one she
carefully wrote each persons' name and also
drew a heart and her name on the back.

Nora: Four

This was the last night I said good night to my three year old.

She woke up FOUR! And excited.

A special thing happens on your birthday.  You're able to have a cookie for breakfast while still in your bed!

There are advantages of being the brother of
the birthday girl.  You get a cookie too.

Nora didn't ask for much for her birthday.  What she did ask for is balloons.  It's been a tradition in our house to have a room full of balloons when you wake up.  That's her favorite part.

This year she woke up early to find her balloons.  4am early.  I woke up to hear this conversation...

Nora: "Myles, are you awake?"

Myles: "Boon, Nana!"

Nora: "Yeah, there's lots of balloons because it's my birthday!"

I go into their room to find both kiddos out of bed tossing the balloons in the air.  After saying happy birthday to Nora I had to break it to them that it was still the middle of the night and they had to go back to sleep for a while before they could play with the balloons again.

Despite her birthday landing on a school day, school was canceled due to polar vortex temperatures... again. She would have to celebrate her birthday at school next time she was line leader/snack girl (which happens to fall on Valentine's Day).

Because of the polar vortex temperatures, we were stuck at home.  We spent the day relaxing and...

playing Uno Moo, of course! And drawing lots of pictures, playing puzzles, and an episode or two of Dora to name a few.

We had a special lunch - grilled cheese in the shape of a 4!

When Dad got home from work he brought her flowers.

Flowers for the birthday girl is a new tradition. It was cute to see the surprise on her face when he game them to her. This picture just makes my heart swell. 

After dinner, it was finally time for presents!!

With my kit lens' focus out of whack I wasn't able to use
the self-timer feature on my normal camera so I had to
download a timer for my iPhone and use the front camera.
Not the greatest but it's all five of us in a picture and all
five of us looking at the camera.  Self-timer for the win.

PARTY TIME!

The day before her birthday we celebrated with a small family party here at the house.

Getting excited for the guests to arrive

She wanted a chocolate cake but knew her Dad doesn't like chocolate. Her solution was to ask for her own personal cake in chocolate and a bigger cake for her guests in vanilla.  I love that she thinks of others.

Her personal chocolate cake.

The vanilla cake for her pink party.

Baptized in Christ

Sunday was one of the most important days of Greta's life.  She received the waters of baptism.  

Thank you, Pastor Bo!

Our family of five

 

Greta and her godfather.
We chose Karen to be her godmother.
Unfortunately, Karen was sick with
the flu and unable to attend.

Almost 94.
3 months.

Proverbs 31:25
She is clothed in strength and dignity and
laughs at the days to come.

Congratulations, Greta Pearl.  May you grow up to know and love the Lord and serve Him to the best of your abilities.  Today He gave you one of the greatest gifts imaginable. 

Greta: three months

As I write this post, we have no height and weight stats.  Her three month appointment isn't until Nora's birthday.  It has been a pretty eventful month.  As the doc said, she is far more alert and wants to see what's going on.  She is very happy and content when she's on the floor while Nora and Myles are playing around her.  Greta just kicks away while watching whatever it is they're doing.  

One of my faves.

Greta sleeps pretty darn well for three months old.  I am looking forward to her falling sleep earlier in the evening and can already tell that's starting to happen.  We are getting closer to a 9/9:30 bedtime rather than 10:00 or after.  She'll usually sleep until the 5 o'clock hour.  She'll wake up for a snack and snooze a few more hours.  She'll be awake for about an hour and a half or two hours and then needs a nap. 

Greta stopped taking a bottle which we found out on New Year's Eve when she had her Gram worried sick because she was crying up a storm yet wouldn't eat. (Not to mention I wasn't answering my phone because I was in the middle of a movie...)  I've worked pretty hard on getting her to take one again. It has worked a couple of times and not on other attempts.  So I'll keep trying.  I have lots of stored milk to practice with.