Valentine's Day - Candy and Tennis

The kids got a bit of candy for Valentine's Day.  Then we drove them out to Stone Mountain to meet my Dad.  He took them to a circus and then spoiled them at the Dollar Store before bringing them home to spend the night.

The circus and going to Papa's were last minute plans, but it freed up my afternoon to watch Todd play tennis.  I always enjoy seeing him play because he has such a love for the sport and is a great player, although I rarely am relieved of parental duties to go watch.  Bringing the kids to the courts is hard because they have so much energy and want to run around and play, or just yell out "HI DADDY" right when Todd is preparing to serve or hit a set point.

He is a jumper!

This was a mixed doubles match.  It was a difficult match because Todd's partner wasn't as strong of a player as the opposing woman, although Todd and the other guy were evenly matched.

Todd has a rockin back hand!  His skills on the court really amaze me.

But it is his sportsmanship that makes me the proudest.  The woman on the other team made multiple bad calls, which ultimately ended up winning them the match.  It is always a disappointment when other players resort to intentionally bad calls and unfair play.  My honeys politely asked her if she was sure of her calls and handled himself well.  If the kids were there, he would have been the best role model for them to see how adults should behave towards cheaters and not stooping to name calling or anger.  That's not to say Todd wasn't angry, but he kept it to himself.  

And so on Valentine's Day, while sitting on the outskirts of the court, I was reminded of how much I love Todd.  Not just for how he treats me and our kids, but for how he treats others in difficult situations.

Walk in the Snow

We started a second snowman and then bedtime came, so his bottom got rolled to the front of the first snowman. It made for a good step up for the kids to be eye level with the snowman.

We got a couple more inches overnight, which made for a very snowy walk after we woke up the next morning.  The snow was so beautiful with the sun making everything sparkle and glisten.

We had to pause our walk so the kids could make snow angels.

Hard to photograph snow angels when the sun is so bright.

The branches on the pine trees were all pointing South.  Owen had fun shaking them and getting covered in their falling snow.

Dylan was impatient with all of the steps the kids wanted to make on our walk.  When Little Horse goes for a walk, he is intent on WALKING.  No dilly-dallying!

Owen is shaking one of the really tall pine trees to make the snow fall off the top branches.

Don't they look like they are on a mission?  Little Explorers with their sticks.  Of course what this picture (and all the others) is missing is the excessive whining and crying from the girl child because she was freezing.  She snuck out of the house without wearing socks, so the snow was freezing off her little pigs.  And she refused to keep her sock gloves on, so her fingers were raw from playing in the snow.  Poor Bean.

Owen was preparing to eat the snowman's face.

See? He builds a snowman up so nice and then he tears him down, one mouthful at a time!

Snow Dog!

Dylan had so much fun running and playing in the snow!

Our Second Snow of Twenty Ten

This was the second snow of the year and it covered everything FAST!

 Gorgeous how it covered the trees and all the branches!

This is a little bird that kept landing within a couple feet of me to go after bird seed scattered on the patio.  I love that red stripe across his head.

Check out his tongue sticking out!  He was talking to me when I was snapping away with my camera.

And look at his skinny, little legs!  You can see the snow flakes melting around his toes.

Love how the snow piles up on the branches.

Kids had fun playing in the snow for all of ten minutes before they got cold and then it was time to go in for dinner.

They were so sweet and kept posing and smiling for me :)

Valentine's Day craft project

Owen totally embraced his classroom project to make a Valentine's box for receiving cards.  I gave him one of my shipping boxes which he painted red.  Then he started cutting out hearts from construction paper and gluing them on the box.

Owen cut so many hearts in different colors and wanted many of them to be standing up.

Owen had me poke holes in the top of the box so he could squeeze pipe cleaners through and then shape them into hearts.  He was so focused on making his box the best ever.

Owen was very pleased with himself.  As well he should have been.  He had awesome ideas and made them happen.

He even wrote this note all on his own.  I love my sweet, thoughtful boy.

Here is the finished box.  Isn't it cool how the pipe cleaners stick up as hearts? Then he glued other paper hearts over them because he felt there really couldn't be enough hearts on his box to adequately celebrate Valentine's Day.

I think it turned out absolutely awesome!

I didn't get my camera settings fully adjusted and got the first way over exposed, but we got to the front of the drop-off line faster than I expected. Whoops.

Driving away, but he's only looking at his box.  So careful not to drop it and walk it in carefully.

Henry

I just love this boy so much.  He is the absolute sweetest and will always let me bury my face in his belly.

Morning Walk

We had had a lot of rain at the start of February, but this morning was the first in awhile that it was under freezing.  

The muddy path through the nature trail was frozen solid, so I took Dylan for a walk through the woods.  Hard to tell from this pic, but the stream was up quite a bit.

Although it was a cold morning, it was beautiful and the sun was out.

We walked all the way to the end of the trail at the edge of the woods, but we had to turn around because the bridge was washed out during our floods last fall.

LOVED the sun shining back through the woods.

Then I saw this swirling lichen growing up on a stump.  Too cool.

Here is the tunnel for the stream that goes under our street.  It is large enough for a couple of cars to drive through side-by-side.