Livie's Haircut

Olivia's hair has been getting pretty long.  I haven't cut it since the first time a couple years ago.  So I decided to give it a try myself.  It ended up being more than I thought, but I think she really needed it.  Those scraggly ends are all gone now, and her hair seems much thicker now.

before (I forgot to take a before shot, but this was a couple days before):

After:

Leprechaun Dash

I signed the kids up for the St. Patty's Day Leprechaun dash 1 mile fun run this year.  It's a elementary/middle school aged kids fun run, so Harrison and Noah got to run it on their own this year.  They did a great job!

Last minute shoe tying:

The gun is fired:

Olivia and Levi were great spectators:

Coming in on the finish line:

This guy threw green sugar on the kids as they came across the finish line.  It was COLD, and I think he was a little crazy.

Planting Fruit Trees

I bought some fruit trees kind of spontaneously while I was shopping at Costco.  Everyone had fun digging the holes to get ready to put them in.

backyard fun in the winter time

Be Mine

We did homemade valentines for the kids this year.  They were super easy ones I found on pinterest that pretty much involved printed out on cardstock, cutting out, and having the kids add their name.  That's my kind of homemade.

Noah had two variations - you make my heart bounce, with bouncy balls that he gave to the girls in his class, and then a star wars, "May the Force be with you on Valentines Day" with a glow bracelet light saber. Olivia, after being shown lots and lots of cute options, picked the cupids arrow, which we attached a glow stick to.  For Harrison we found a fun "fortune teller" variation, which seemed to fit a 4th grader.  We packaged them up with candy, and I think they were a big hit.

Harrison also got to decorate his own valentines box at home.  We came up with a robot theme using an old Kleenex box and a shoe box covered in foil.  

With Olivia's hair getting longer all the time, I decided it was high time I start trying out some of those fun little girl hair dos while she'll still let me.  

We did heart shaped pig tails for her school valentines party.  

And heart shaped french braids for Valentine's day.  I surprised myself with my french braiding skills.  Thank goodness for video tutorials on this kind of thing!

For dinner on Valentines day, I told the kids we were going to have a "romantic meal" as a family.  Which of course means eating by candle light.

There was candy sprinkled across the table, and a licorice rope heart on each plate.  I also wrote each person a list of the 10 things I love about them.  We'd been doing love note mail boxes all month, but I haven't been the best about it, so this was my chance to catch up.

We had some simple decorations out all month, which included some blocks I got at target a couple years ago.  They are meant spell things like "LOVE," "XOXO," "KISS," "HUGS," but everytime I walked by the kids had intentionally spelled something else.  This was their favorite:

Pinewood Derby (Harrison guest blogger)

This year I wanted to do something "good". Finally, I got a good idea. I decided to do an angry birds one, and it worked out pretty well. 

putting the race car in position 

racing! 

me with my car, pointing to where I live.

Although I didn't get first, second, or third place, it was fun. And if you had fun, you won, right?

New Years

We continued our tradition of decorating the Christmas tree as a New Year's tree the week after Christmas. Streamers, balloons with prizes in side, funny glasses, headbands, necklaces and noisemakers made it look very festive.

 The boys were very excited at staying up for the real new years this year.

In the past we have the celebrate with the East Coast at 9, and send them off to bed.  Olivia didn't even make it till nine, and was less than thrilled when we woke her up then to watch the ball drop and pop some balloons.  She just wanted to go back to her bed!

She's very sensitive to loud noises these days, so all the commotion was more than she wanted.

After popping balloons the boys stayed up and watched Harry Potter #4, which they both loved.  Happy New Year!