My cute little Valentine's

It is no secret that Valentine’s Day is one of my favorite days of the year. Presents are also one of my favorite things. I love the element of surprise, I love having something new and I love opening gifts…I can’t help it. When Neal and I were dating he did something that he called Valanakkah. This is 8 days of Valentine’s day with a gift every day. Once we got married Valanakkah died off. BUT…it came back this year and I couldn’t be more excited. He is such a good husband and father regardless of Valanakkah but he really is a great gift giver. The girls have gotten new balls, stickers, pencils, note pads, tattoos, candy and stuffed animals. Reese has had so much fun with it. We got the girls a cookie cake last night and we took it to Grayson’s house to share it with him. We sent Valentine's cards to school with the girls today. Ella's is a bit creepy but so funny that we had to send them. Tonight the plan was to take the girls to Chick fil a for a candlelit dinner and live music but Ella was so fussy that we decided it would be best for Neal to take Reese and I stay home with Ella. It worked out well because I got some really goo quality time in with Ella and Neal and Reese seemed to have had a great time together as well. Valentine’s day is really a lot of fun now that we have kids to celebrate love with.

Jitterbugs January 2013

Reese has been taking a dance class for the past 6 months called Jitterbugs. I love this program because they come to her school one day a week so she can do an activity like this without it interfering with our family time in the evenings. This is nice since we have such little time together on the weekdays. She absolutely loves Thursdays since she gets to go to Jitterbugs that day. She always comes home so excited to show us the dances that she is learning.

Saturday before last she had her big recital. We have been talking about it for weeks and she was so excited. The recital was a 1 and she normally naps between 11:30 and 2 on the weekends. So she was napless when we went to the recital, which did not help at all. She was reluctant to go with the rest of her class while the rest of us went to find seats but she complied. When the curtains opened and the song began the rest of her class began dancing and she froze. She stood on stage with one hand in her mouth looking at the rest of the kids and not dancing a step. She did wave and smile at us a couple of times. By the 3rd song she was sobbing and I had to go and get her. I laughed so hard that I was crying during the first song. While it would have been great if she had danced it will be such a funny memory that we will cherish. Below are some links to the videos that we got.

http://youtu.be/rIuz_DHsDuw

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