This and That from February

This is James's ninja turtle costume.

My phone's screen is kept locked so the only thing the kids can do with it is take pictures. Sometimes I find these gems.

While Justin was hunting down a homeless rabbit in our backyard, Erica coped with the situation by drawing a picture of the rabbit that has hopped around the neigborhood for months. She wanted to name it Hoppy but I told her I already named it Poopsie because of the several hundred rabbit poops in our backyard. (The rabbit is now dead and we can use our yard again.)

Nothing says be my Valentine like a bat brownie.

 

James and I visited Justin at work a few weeks ago. They have a 3D printer and Justin has a toy excavator in his office so James thinks it's pretty much the coolest place ever.

I lost a measuring cup from one of my measuring cup sets. I looked everywhere (all my dry good bins, in the toy kitchen) and even asked my neighbor if my kids used it to dig in their yard (which isn't an unlikely occurrence). We concluded that it got thrown away somehow. I was really upset about it because 1. I liked that set, 2. I can't buy it online anywhere and 3. I don't want to spend money on a new measuring cup set. It took me like a month to finally break down and buy new ones (And I really like them) but I still held onto the remaining cups of this set out of hope or denial. 

And then I found it last week. I pulled out a bag of dried milk that I keep in the freezer and there it was. It's been there since that FHE when we made peanut butter playdough (November maybe?). Pretty sure I was the one to zip up this large resealable bag and stick it in the freezer. Funny part is, I misread the recipe and didn't even need dried milk this day so who knows how long it would have taken me to find it.

The kids could make a Valentine box for school if they wanted to and they wanted to. James didn't want to be left out so he made a monster box.

Erica chose a unicorn (thank you pinterest)

Henry's is an Among Us guy.

And Sarah's is a toaster. A Cuisinheart toaster. (See what we did there?)

She won second place in her class's contest. I saw the first place box that was a vending machine. It deserved to win.

Sarah asked me if I ever had Valentine box contests in elementary school. I told her, yes every year, but now that I think about it, I think it was just me that always made my boxes like it was a competition!

Note to self and warning to others: don't buy the Tootsie Pop Valentine kit. The hearts do not punch out without scissors and/or cursing.

We had to improvise our own little tags with stickers that I had on hand

I actually think they turned out cuter and Erica and her friend Madison liked working on them. Henry is at the end of the table complaining why he has to do this dumb Valentine stuff.

James got a little obsessed with cutting out hearts and made one for everyone he knows. I'd fold the paper and draw the line for him to follow.

This is for his cousin Jaana. It's his best one.

Friday we went to the school to see the 5th and 6th grade science fair. I snapped this picture of Sarah's student council picture.

I thought the science fair would be boring since it's just posters---no malfunctioning volcanoes like on television. But it was actually pretty interesting. The kids were so creative and genuine. I liked it and wished I had time to talk to each of the kids but I only stopped at 10 or so.

Here's Sarah's project. She was among 9 sixth graders that won 1st place. (Still not sure how that works.)

A car carrier trailer (I had to google what it's called) pulled up in front of our house Saturday morning. We called the kids up to take a look as it's not something that we've ever seen on our street.

After a year long hiatus, Justin and I went out to dinner with our good friends and neighbors AmyJo and Brock Jones. We introduced them to a taco place in Provo, they introduced us to Brooker's ice cream in Provo and it was the best ice cream I've ever had. The theme of the place is colonial America so they  have clever names like Alexander Hamilton's Not Gonna Throw Away My Scoop and Patrick Henry's Give Me Chocolate or Give Me Death. This is Aaron Burr's Murderous Shot (Black Madagascar vanilla). 

And that takes us to Valentine's Day. We celebrated with a fancy dinner at home. Justin made the most authentic enchiladas, refried beans, and jalapeno poppers. He even bought Mexican sodas to make the dinner extra fun. I gave each of the kids a bag of Valentine candy and we had a dance party in the living room after we ate. Oh! And chocolate mousse pie for dessert.

The kids opened their Valentines from my sister-in-law Lisa. She has the snowcone shacks and she sends all her nieces and nephews Valentines every year. She's making it nearly impossible to compete with for Favorite Aunt award.

And that's that.