Other Valentine's holiday fun

Just thought I could post some more Valentine's photos. The kids and I joined the extended family at the annual Valentine's dinner. Seth was counseling up in Salt Lake, we really miss him during fun times like this. 

Scarlett posing with the infamous Waldorf Cake! Yum. 

 Louis & aunt Kara, uncleGarrett & Brooke

 Scarlett with sweet Uncle Devry

 Scarlett posing with our fun Valentine's. candy, animals, temporary tattoos. fun, fun, fun.

 Lincoln will not just sit in a shopping cart anymore, the good days are over.

 Lincoln & Scarlett scored $20 from gma/pa Burke to buy their own Valentine's! Scarlett chose some pink gum and a new princess tea set. Don't we have enough tea sets yet? Is it possible to have too many tea sets?

Lincoln & Scarlett also each got mail from Iowa! Gma and pa Hartley sent some fun coloring pages and cute homemade Valentine's, so thoughtful.

I really love this photo of Lincoln!

Bad Dreams

Not a very positive title, but when Scarlett and I woke up and simultaneously walked out of our bedrooms at the same time this morning she looked nervous. She said she had a bad dream. There was a fire in her room, and she was in there with a lot of "good and bad animals". Poor thing, She didn't have anything else to say about it, but it sounds quite terrible.

I had a dream that my phone's screen shattered. I tried fitting the large thick pieces back together. Dreams feel so real, and can be so realistic when you are in them.  However, when you wake up from a bad one it's quite a relief when you realize just how unrealistic it was.

Both Scarlett and Lincoln would sometimes cry out in the middle of the night when they were newborn/infants. A sad/scared/in pain cry. But it would just be one cry, and while they were in the middle of what seemed to be a deep sleep.

On a brighter note, in this random documenting/journal post....

Tomorrow Scarlett is going to hand out some birthday invitations! She turns 4 on March 3rd. She has had two consistent requests for her party 1. it be an owl theme and 2. she wants a chocolate cake! She also only wants girls at her party. We are going to have it be a "drop off" party, so the parents aren't expected to stay. First time doing that, it will be a fun time!

I always enjoy creating Scarlett and Lincoln's Birthday invites, but I really have no idea what I'm doing! Which creates some frustrating long hours over something that seems so minimal only after it's done.  I can't wait for Seth to be done with his in
ternship, I want to sign up for a photoshop class. Then I can really learn how to work that program!!

8

8, Eight posts for 2013. That is terrible. My goal for 2014 - write at least 9 posts.

2014 has treated us very well so far. And with the warmer weather lately, and the rain that melted all the nasty snow - 2014 is looking a lot better too! I'm sure it will snow again though, which would make Seth pretty happy.

Valentine's Day was a success! It started with pink heart pancakes and yummy juice for breakfast. The kids and I were going to go surprise Seth at work with the annual (embarrassing) balloon bouquet. But - he decided to come home early. So that was initially a bummer, but obviously quickly became the best thing ever.

 We drove around the neighborhood and delivered Valentine's to some good friends in the ward. Then we drove out to PG and heart attacked my grandparents (Gigi and Gigpa). Scarlett was very confused when I told her we were going to "heart attack" it. She felt it was going to be a mean thing, for us to attack them. But she loved it, and says "Remember when we heart attacked gigi?"

 

We went to drop some Valentine's off to friends in Lehi and ended up staying there for the evening. Scarlett loved playing with the kids and we got to enjoy a few games with just adults! Quite an enjoyable time.

Yesterday was the most productive day we have had all year! I worked 4 1/2 hours, Seth changed the rear brakes, I ran lots of errands/shopping, we painted a wall that has had paint scraped off it since last August (!!!!) We filled holes, sanded it, washed it, bonding primed it, and put two coats of paint on it. (I'm pretty much the happiest person in the world because that finally got done) Sad thing is - it was so easy, really should have done it months ago. We also put hardware on our kitchen cupboards.
We enjoyed watching Ender's Game to finish the great day off.

Today was Ward Conference. After church we had friend's over for dinner, the Topham's, and the girls had great fun playing together again. We even fit the bouncy house in a basement room so the kids were well entertained. One of the best things about company coming over is the house gets cleaned well. (:



Seth has tomorrow off, so we have another free day. Since Saturday was so productive, we will have to do something fun!

One more for 2013

Maybe I'll be better next year, not making promises though.

Christmas was fun this year. It was different than others though. This was our first year staying home, and no family visiting from out of town. The main reason we didn't go anywhere is because Seth is/was hoping to get ahead, or not more behind, on hours for his internship. It is very nice that his work shuts down for the holiday. Paid break for two weeks! The kids are loving it, and so am I, but the kids - are seriously loving it.

Christmas eve we saw Frozen in the theater. Scarlett and Seth were glued to the screen, and I got to help Lincoln be entertained. Scarlett really loves seeing movies in the theater - this was probably her third time. (Today we also saw Despicable Me 2 in the dollar theater. Lincoln did worse than in Frozen, but I got to see the majority of it).

We then spent the rest of the afternoon/evening at my grandparent's in Pleasant Grove. Dinner was amazing and the time around aunts/uncles/cousins/grandparents was good.

We came home and got our Christmas jammies on. Read "The Very First Christmas", that was recorded by both grandparents!! My parents recorded it and gave it to us just after Thanksgiving, and then Seth's parents mailed us their recorded copy early last week! Those books are so nice, I love hearing our parent's voice reading to their grandkids.

Seth and I "prepared" the Christmas tree with presents that have been hiding all month. We couldn't put anything under the tree since Scarlett opened anything with an "S" on it (obviously that means it's for Scarlett).

Seth woke me up at 3:45 am in a panic that he heard Scarlett come out of her room. (Why did he have to wake me up??? He heard her, he could have stopped her!) I jumped out of bed and redirected her to her bed. I'm pretty sure she had somehow gotten to the tree and display of presents before we woke up at 7:30 for the day. The mini train set was taken apart, but Scarlett denied all accusations of course.

It was a Merry Christmas! Lincoln's favorite toy is the Mega Blocks Piano and Scarlett's is her Princess Tent (which we place on top of her bed, so she sleeps in her tent, on her bed.)
Seth's favorite present was the portable air compressor and his big tool set bench/organizer thing. MY favorite present was .... my 5S iphone! Yes, I have crossed over from the "dumb" phone world into the smart high tech stuff.

Christmas day afternoon we went to my brother's in Spanish Fork to spend time with his family. We had ham dinner complete with all the yummy Christmas Day dinner menu items. The kids also got to break open a pinata!  A Hartley family tradition, this year mom and dad brought one with goodies from Iowa for us to break for our kids.

It was a great Christmas! We are lucky to have each other and to spend a lot of time together during this Holiday Season.