Month of Love (February 1-11)

We started this month with a trip to Lowe's.  We are working on organizing the playroom downstairs.  I'll post pictures when we are done.  

But here is a shot of Walter and Hunter sitting on a shelf, while we waited for the guy at Lowe's cut the wire shelves for us.  

Groundhog's Day

On Groundhog's day Walter and I decided to make some groundhog cookies.  

I got the idea from; She Know: Food and Recipes.

They were super cute with cute details like eyes and teeth.  We just made no-bake cookies and put a tootsie roll in the middle.  

Provo City Center Temple

On Sunday our bishop told us that we should take some time to go and walk by the Provo City Center Temple. He said that the progress was a engineering marvel.  And sure enough he was right.  For our family home evening we walked around and talked about the temple.   

Isn't that amazing.  I have no idea how they did it, but it looks like the whole temple is on stilts   

Uncle Josh's Birthday 

Friday Feb 8th was my brother's birthday, so we went over to my Tio and Tia's house for a little celebration.  Josh had asked me ahead of time to make two banana cream pies.  So I was a bit surprised to see that in addition to my two pies, he also had two cakes.  

So we put a "two" on one cake and a "four" on the other.  He may have not gotten everything he wished for, but he had plenty of dessert.  

Let Me Call You Sweetheart Dance

After Josh's Birthday Party, we went home and met the babysitter, put the kids down for the night and attended the Stake's Valentine Dance.  We missed the dance instruction part of the evening, but we were still able to watch some BYU dance groups perform.   

We were able to find a group of friends and sit and talk and enjoy some yummy dessert.  We did dance, but just one song.  It was funny-because in the middle of the song Weston told me his hips hurt already from dancing.  

I love him, so much.  

Cute Quincy

No post is complete without a picture of Quincy.  He is just such a cute little boy.  

This is he favorite way to sit.  

Valentine Exchange Gift

Several ladies in my ward get together each year for a valentine exchange party, and they invited me this year.  I was super excited, but a bit nervous (that the ladies wouldn't like the craft I made).  I wanted to make something cute, but simple since I would have to make 15 of them.  

So I went to my favorite wood craft store: Wood Connection, in American Fork and picked up 14 small hearts.  I love the way they turned out.  I just think they are so pretty.  Here they are (13 out of the 15) all lined up.  

Valentine Surprise

The boys and I thought it would be fun to "Heart Attack"  Grandpa Mac and Grandma Sharman.  So on Sunday we cut and colored some hearts and drove over to their house, while they were in church.  

The boys and I put them all over their door and Weston shoveled their driveway.  The boys were so pleased with their work.  And Grandma and Grandpa told us that when they came home, it put a smile on their faces to see all the hearts.  

Sweetheart Date

For our Sweetheart Date this year I went with a "Chinese Theme"  

Most of the ideas came from:

Love Actually: Chinese Date Night 

Dating Divas: Chinese Please

Here is the invitation that I gave Weston 

We actually had to switch the date to Feb 11th, because the lanterns that I had ordered didn't come until Monday.  

I tried to hang the lanterns in a cluster around the light

Then on each plate I added this red Chinese food take-out container that I got from Hobby Lobby

Inside the boxes were some treats and inside Weston's were these felt fortune cookies.  

(The boys joined us this year, since it was school night)

For dinner I made:

Crock-Pot Chicken Teriyaki

Stir-Fry Noddles and Veggies

and Rice

Then we watched the movie: Mulan

And for dessert I made:

Strawberry Shortcake Sushi

It was super yummy and super fun.  

Random

This is just a random picture that I wanted to share.  One evening this is how I found Walter.  

I don't know what he was doing, but this is how he fell asleep.  

End of January

Winter Cooking

In my effort to be a better mom, I'm trying to do more activities with the kids.  I saw these cute snowman cookies and thought they would be fun for the boys to make.  The boys enjoyed dipping the Nutter Butters into white chocolate, they also enjoyed licking their fingers.  I didn't have any orange tic tacs, so I decided to use orange frosting instead.  And we just used leftover Christmas M&M's for the buttons.    The ones below are mine.  

It was a little harder for the boys to decorate the faces, but they didn't seem to care.  

The loved making the snowman, and they loved eating them.  

Weston's Birthday (33rd) 

We celebrated Weston's Birthday as a family.  He asked for his traditional birthday dinner and Carol's Cake for dessert.   Earlier in the day the boys gave Weston, several board games for his gifts.  

The boys also decorated a poster for him.  

Then in the middle of the afternoon, Walter told me we needed to decorate with balloons, so we ran to Macey's to pick up some blue (Weston's favorite color) balloons.  

Happy Birthday to the best husband and father.  We Love You

Quincy's First Step

A Valentine Gift for Mommy:  Quincy took his first step.
One step towards Mommy.
Later, two steps towards Grandpa Mac.
and then later, two more steps towards Mommy.
A busy and exciting day: February 14, 2013

Middle of January

Chef Walter McArthur's Cooking Show

One day in the middle of January, Walter came up with this new game.  He spent alot of time downstairs with the play kitchen and then slowly brought everything that he had made upstairs.  He then asked us to come and see what he had been up to.  He told us that this was, "Chef Walter McArthur's Cooking Show.  He explained what he had made and then asked us to try something.  It was so cute.  

He also brought up the cash register, so he could charge us.  

He makes a delicious pizza.  

Quincy

 Quincy is super cute!!  One day he crawled under one of the bar stools and then decided to stand up.  It was such a cute picture.  Unfortunately right after I took this picture he decided that he wanted to get out and realized that he couldn't get out so he pushed the stool and fell.  

Craft Night

I was able to host another craft night-super fun!  It's so nice to just get together and talk and craft and laugh. The main craft I worked on was this valentine countdown:

Jennifer found all the items and even came up with a cute countdown idea which focuses on charity.  

For anyone that is interested she has included a link for the PDF on her blog.  

Valentine Focus on Charity

 And I was also able to work on this cute wood project from the Wood Connection:

Winter Craft-Snowflakes

I saw this cute idea: Borax Snowflakes, and knew that this was an activity that the boys would like.  I love making crafts, and I want to do more crafts with the boys, so  I'm also looking for boy friendly crafts.  

This idea was found at Delia Creates

I wish I had white pipe cleaners, but I was trying to use what I had so our snowflakes were more on the gray side.  

Men's Basketball

Weston's is playing in the ward's basketball team.  Usually their games are after eight, so the kids and I can never go.  But he finally had a six o'clock game, so we went to cheer him one.  The kids loved it.  They cheer so loud for their dad and the ward.  

The pictures are super blurry because I was trying to take them with Quincy on my lap.  And he kept wanting to help.  

Another week full of great memories.  

Quincy's First Sentence

Today: February 7th 2013
Weston walked by Quincy and said,"Hello, Quincy"
Quincy looked up and said, " Hi, Dad"
Clear as a bell.
I can't help but feel a tid bit jealous.  All three of the boys have said "Dad" first.  And now Quincy's first sentence is, "Hi, Dad"