Valentine's Day {2 Weeks Late!}

Happy Valentine's Day from Andrew and Alex!

And, from Baby Austin, too! He was tired out from all the fun!

Happy Valentine's Day

We hope everyone had a fabulous Valentine's Day! We didn't start the week off so hot (or, maybe we did...). Both boys had some goofy fever virus Monday...luckily, everything left as quickly - and oddly - as it came by Wednesday morning. So, Andy was SO glad he was able to go to school for his Valentine's party. Jason was out of town for the first half of the week, too. So, yeah...it was fun. Life of a mama, right?! Anyway, here are some pictures of our Valentine's fun for the week. Enjoy!

I threw this together earlier this month. I had NOTHING on this mantle since taking everything down after Christmas. It was a sad little shelf... But, I got it together!

Items used:

My antique backgammon board

Heart wreath - Target, last one on the shelf...had to grab it, right?

Blue Candle with ribbon I just tied on - Target

"LOVE" and striped party straws - Target

My black candle holder that shows up everywhere holding anything with some ribbon tied around it. 

Little white candle - this is actually a Christmas/winter candle. Smells like pine. 

Had to add in the blue for the boys this year. Andy is all about the "no girl colors" thing now. He told me I could have "a little tiny pink" Thanks, sweetie :)

 Sunday evening tea with a fabulous message from my tea tag! 

It reads: "Where there is love, there is no question." 

Perfect for Valentine's - don't you think?

I love these teas! Yogi Tea is the best!!

Monday morning we headed out to get some meds and such from Publix. I just had to pick up these fancy flowers! I love how they added the sparkles to the blooms! So cute :)

Monday night/Tuesday Morning:

Jason went to the Strong Men Strong Faith Conference Monday night (Which he said was great, by the way. If you have a man in your life - husband, father, brother, friend - he should definitely check it out.) and came home with two dozen Krispy Kreme donuts. Now, if you know my hubby personally, you know he is not really the type that gets suckered into "sweet deal." He said that he since he was near a Krispy Kreme, he decided he wanted a snack. After he picked out 2 he liked, he thought the boys would like the sprinkle hearts. After he had X amount of sweetness, somehow he ended up getting a good deal if he bought 2 dozen. LOL So funny. I just love him!!

 Wednesday night after a full day of feeling awesome and 100% great, Andy and I get to working on Valentine's before bed. He was very particular about which friend got which card. It was SO CUTE!!

 And this picture? He just did that and I happened to snap it. SO CUTE!!! He made that face with every friend!! Love this kid...

 

 Valentine's morning:

Party cups!! Woot!! How cute are these?! When Target put these out in January...they were mine! It is so hard to find BLUE Valentines' stuff. And, love the little strong guy on it! They both say "World's Best" on the side. And, yes! They are the world's best little boys! We love you both SO much!! And, ok, doesn't Andy look like he is totally saying, "Cheese. Take it already." LOL

School party!!

Alex and I came back to Andy's school around lunch time for the party. Alex thought he was cool stuff sitting at the big kid table. He was talking to a little girl while Andy was listening to what the other boys were talking about. These little kids in this class are ADORABLE! They are all the sweetest. Wish I had taken a pic of the little gift we had for his teacher - darn! Andy picked out an awesome coffee cup for her and filled it with candies. She is fabulous and had made Andy feel so welcome. So glad we made the choice in taking him out of that other preschool.

After we left school, we made an impromptu trip to the McWane Center - loved it! NO ONE WAS THERE!!! Always think about what those big kids are doing - hello? School parties. Everyone is AT school! Woot! And, I swear, if I had a room filled with those pokey box things (whatever that is called in the bottom right picture...), these guys would be entertained for HOURS!! I had to drag them away after a while. Too funny!

 Thursday afternoon Andy and Alex made some Valentine's for Grandma and Nana

 Thursday night BEFORE dinner the boys decorated their mailboxes. 

After dinner, they got to see what I put inside while they were finishing up. 

Items inside:

Light up bouncy ball

New pack of crayons

M&Ms

Lightning McQueen Lollipop (yes, from the leftover school Valentine's)

Andy was the sweetest ever and shared his goodies with Alex that he got from school. What a wonderful big brother!!

 Jason came home just in time to say goodnight to them. I found that he left this on the counter for me!! Yummy! Chocolate and wine!!! He is the best!! :) 

Again, we hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day (or week, if you are crazy like us!)!!

This Week's Eats

Welcome to a week of partying and fasting!? Yes, we are entering the week where the carnival season ends, the season of Lent begins, and Valentine's day. I hope no one went crazy and gave up sweets! ;) Anyway, you will notice that our menus will have a lot more seafood/vegetarian items due to our Fridays of abstaining from meat. Now, on to the menu!

graphic source

Valentine's Day Fun

 

My sweet boys in the morning before school :) Can you tell who is the morning bird and who is the night owl?

 

Alex and I dropped off Andrew to run a few errands before heading back to the school for a Valentine's party. His little class is so CUTE!! 

Enjoying his juice :)

Why is he such a big boy already???

Alex "talking" to one of Andrew's friends. 

He was telling me about his Cheese Puffs and that I need to "camera down." Men... lol

Time for Valentines to be handed out - Look, Alex got one! A little girl said that she likes my baby and he can have a Valentine. LOL Love little kids.

I wish I had gotten his FACE! The boys were so NOT happy to get Princess Valentine's. It was so funny! I told Andrew that he gave out ones with cars on them and the girls were ok. Little did I know that he would respond, "Mama. Cars cool." Wow. He has grown up, huh? 

When we got home, Andrew and Alex played "mail" with the Valentine loot. 

After a while and nap time had passed it was time to get ready for dinner. Jason and I are celebrating our Valentine's with a weekend out of town very soon, but I still had a yummy dinner and cupcakes for everyone.

 

YUM!! Tilapia Asparagus Bundles! Very good :) I will share the recipe in just a bit. 

 Vanilla Red Cupcakes!

And, of course, you can't forget the bubbly!! 

Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Greeting card from Shutterfly!

Getting Ready for Valentine's Day!

Andrew has his first Valentine's Party coming up!! And, Alex has his first Valentine's Day!! I got them both cute shirts for the occasion - cuz that's what I do - and I promise to post pics of them. :)

This afternoon, Andrew and I got the Valentine's together for his class. There were many choices - Toy Story, Cars, Winnie the Pooh, Highlights... way too many. I am sure it was the same when I was picking out Valentine's, only I think I only stuck with Barbie, Hello Kitty or Lisa Frank! Anyway, after a few mind changes between Cars and Toy Story, Andrew ended up choosing:

I know. Not Cars or Toy Story. He saw those on an end cap (ha! mama's boy! knows to look on the Target end caps for the goods lol) and was super excited. Only $2.99 - so why not. Plus, it came with stickers instead of tattoos. Which, no, I don't mind...but they are hard to get on when you have someone who is impatient... (talking about the 2 year old...ok, and me).

It came time to get to Valentining - yay! And, yes, that is a word - not. Lol.

Super excited! 

Got them all stacked by colors, too :)

 Adding stickers to the cards for his friends.

Choosing which one this friend and that friend should get. Too cute. He thought about each name and then picked one out. For some he had changed his mind. I wonder what he was thinking while doing this. 

It was really fun to get these little cards together for his class. He is such a sweetie, too. I asked him who his friends were - I was hoping for a name (don't worry I got the name list before doing this!), but he said, "All friends." Love it.

Valentine's Weekend & Nite

A little behind, I know... But, the end of this pregnancy is killing me... Anyhoo! This is a long update. 

On Sunday, we headed out to this amazing preserve that was the home to so many tigers, lions, and other huge cats that I lost count! Tigers for Tomorrow!! If you ever near Gadsden or taking a drive to Chattanooga, you have got to take a detour and stop here. I wish I could have taken pictures, but, unfortunately, there are signs everywhere stating "not allowed." So, boo. But, these cats are here to relax, I suppose. :)

It was such an amazing place!! They are housed in huge cages, not like at a zoo. They are not stuck behind glass. They are not alone. You can actually tell that they are happy where they are!! And, around each cage, there is fence about 5 feet away. So, we get to stand at the fence and they are there. About 5 feet away from you. We heard Boris the Great, a gorgeous lion with an awesome mane, roar a little. He was so funny. He rolled all around and laid out in the sunshine to warm his tummy! We also saw some bears, Basil and Sage. They were the party bears for the weekend (there was a special admission fee B1G1 for Valentine's). Andrew loved the tigers and the cougars the most. He pointed and whispered "wow!" the entire time we were there.

The best part was that we came at a really great time - lunch time. These animals know exactly when it is time to get their meat and veggies! There are anywhere from 2-4 of the same animal in one home and they were getting hungry - fast! Some were polite and waiting patiently. Others were highly annoyed that lunch wasn't happening fast enough so they were loud and starting little fights with one another. We watched the Shakira, one of the larger tigers eat her lunch close up. Very cool. But, those cougars...nope...we were told to back away from the fence because they do NOT like people watching. They are not the sharing type. It was a really cool thing to watch. They all eat 1 lunch that is equal to maybe a week or a week and a half of dinners for us. WOW. And, they eat pretty well. One of the keepers told us that they get chicken breast and various cuts of beef including fillet mignon! WHAT?!

As we were heading out, we checked out the little farm they had. There were a lot of goats, chickens, and pigs. But this one llama...ugh! So, I like llamas. I did anyway. He was cool at first. I was talking to him and telling him how nice he was, but no. He didn't care. He was about to (gasp!) spit at me! ARE YOU KIDDING?! Stinky llama. I bolted away from him! Andrew was laughing...so was Jason...and a few other random people out there. Nice. Mr. Llama, you are are a stinker.

Anyway, we headed home and grabbed lunch on the way. And this was the next animal noise I heard:

In one of it's natural habitats, the cute Stinkapotamus can be heard quietly snoring. Haha!

This is what the place looks like driving in or out. See? Untamed Mountain. They weren't kidding! 

On Valentine's Day - the actual day - Andrew and I went out to get the mail. And he got a letter!! A letter from Ma & Dave!! He loves getting mail. But, he was more excited to see a duck in the card! Very cute!!

Later that day, I started making dinner. Andrew had dinner just as Jason was coming home and then we both gave him his valentine heart filled with m&m's (his favorite!). Once he was all snuggly in bed, Jason and I had our dinner. I made my fabulous Cheesy Chicken (a spinoff of Chicken Kiev) and we had chocolate fondue with strawberries and pound cake for dessert. YUM! We even watch a chick flick! I told him to get whatever movie and he got "You Again" Best chick flick I've seen in a while! It was pretty funny!!

What a wonderful Valentine's!! Hope everyone had a great one, too!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

Wishing everyone a lovely day!!

Valentine's Date

Last night, Jason and I celebrated our Valentine's Night at our favorite restaurant ever - Surin West. Best Thai food you'll find. Our friend, Rachel, suggested a trade-off a few weeks ago for this and it was the best idea! We really weren't sure if we were even going to go anywhere. So, thanks, Rachel! :D

Bump's getting bigger - 9 weeks to go! 

We are thinking that Alex is bigger than Andrew was. We will see.

We probably ate too much, but oh well. It was totally worth it! We had Crab Angels and the California Roll for an appetizer. Jason had his favorite - Spicy Beef Noodle. I had mine - Thai Noodle. And we ended it with (enter drum roll!) a most delicious Mocha Brownie! See? Too much. But... OH. SO. GOOD.

It was such a great night! We actually got to talk together without having to insert the typical parental commands. You know... "Stop doing that, (child's name)" or "Eat your dinner" or anything else. LOL. And we got to chat without hearing "the Packers are the Super Bowl 45 Champions" for the millionth time (thanks NFL Network for your OBNOXIOUS replays...the football season is over, guys). It was so nice to just be us again (Andrew was asleep when we got home, too - bonus!) for the evening. 

What a great night!!

Happy Valentine's!!