Valentine's Day

I love February.  This month has Valentine's Day and our wedding anniversary which makes the whole month extra special.

Getting ready for Valentine's Day when you have five kids ends up being a very complicated experience.  Joey needed Valentines for daycare and kindergarten plus teacher gifts.  Emmie and Logan needed Valentine's for preschool.  Conor needed Valentines for 5th grade.  Joey needed a class set of juice boxes for his kindergarten party.  And of course we needed to bake a ton of heart shaped cookies - just cuz!

This year I even got up early and made a big family breakfast for everyone (very rare given this was a school day).  I even made pancakes from scratch - only because we were out of Bisquick and they turned out terribly! But hey, it was the thought that counts right?  Jeff, Tom and Conor were so sweet, they all choked them down and tried to tell me they were great.  Logan is too young to know to lie in the name of being polite, so he had blueberry muffins instead.     

I took half a day off work and volunteered in Joey's kindergarten classroom in the afternoon.  He got to decorate cookies, make a cute bear card for me, and pass out his Valentines.  For dinner I made steak and salmon, pasta and mashed red potatoes, french bread and sauteed vegetables (saying "I love you" with food again!).

Jeff and I are headed to Sonoma next week for a Happy Valentine's Day/ Happy Anniversary overnight kid-free trip.  This weekend we are taking the whole crew to the snow for two nights in Tahoe. 

Busy, busy, busy... I love February!

Logan Time

On the trampoline.

Now if you ask Joey, "Logan Time" is pretty much all the time.  Logan tends to dominate any conversation, be the loudest in any room, and if he doesn't have anything to say will resort to nonsensical jibberish just to keep all eyes on him.  Even still I try to make some Logan time every weekend.  With five kids it would be easy for them to feel lost in the crowd, so we always try to carve out some time for each of them separately. 

For Logan that time is usually grocery shopping with me at Target every weekend.  Not exactly exciting but it is our special time. This weekend he was invited to his schoolmate's 3rd birthday party at Planet Gymnastics.  It was a Thomas the Train themed party at a gymnastics center and the invite said not to bring a gift- what could be better?  Don't get me wrong, I don't mind getting kids gifts but it was really nice to just get to show up at a party without running to the store on the way, and then attempt to wrap the gift at every red light between the store and party!

Very cautious!

When we first arrived Logan was really shy and clingy to me - which seems odd since he knew pretty much every kid and parent there, seeing as how they were all from his school.  But this is Logan, and seeing those kids somewhere other than school is not part of his routine.

Soon enough (by Logan standards) he warmed up and started running around.  He had a blast!  He was totally well behaved and did not feel the need to be the center of attention.  This behavior backs up my theory that Logan, when not competing for attention from mom and dad, is actually a very polite and well mannered little boy.  All in all it was a wonderful time spent with my little man.

Foam block pit!

At the end of the party he received a plastic microphone (yay! something to make him louder) and a helium balloon with a coupon for a free gymnastics class attached to it (yay! a free way to entertain him).  He was so excited about that balloon. I was nervous that he would lose it on the way to the car so I tied it to the plastic microphone.  In the car on the way home he decided to roll down his window.  Within seconds the wind whipped up that balloon - coupon, microphone and all - and flung it out the window. 

Logan was devastated.  He instantly burst into tears.  And these weren't temper tantrum tears or even angry tears - these were pathetic WHY ME?! tears.  Luckily when you are three years old and your whole world falls apart because your balloon flew out the window, your mom can fix it by buying you a new book at Target.  And that is just what she did.