More of February

Tuesday the 11th

The day before (Monday) the kids didn't have school because of the snow storm, but they were back the next day.  Paige had a field trip to Portland to see the play, "Charlotte's Web" at a children's theater.  She really enjoyed it!  

That night for Young Women's, we had our New Beginnings program and I was in charge of the decorations.  So I decorated while Noah was at preschool.  We used the movie, "Up" as our inspiration for the decorations and the program.  

 This was the invitation I made.  The theme was "Look UP and come unto Christ."

We gave each of the 5 incoming Beehives the little framed picture of Christ and the 2014 theme (on the table)

 This is where we were going to put the refreshments (root beer floats/sherbet floats and wafer cookies), but we ended up just serving from the kitchen instead.  

Can you believe that Lydia is one of our incoming Beehives?  Not until November of course, but crazy still!  

Garrett was still out of town, so I had Paige babysit the other kids here at church.  

Maggie came home from school on the 13th and told us that she got a 270 on her OAKS Test for reading. (standardized test for Oregon).  Those numbers don't really mean anything to me because I don't know the rating.  She told me though that her teacher was really impressed and that it was the highest score on the reading test that he and the other reading teachers have seen in the last 20 years!  To make it even cooler, her teacher, Mr. Fishback called us the next day to tell us about it.  They even called the people who run the test to see what a perfect score was and I think it was a 290 or 300, but that she only missed one question on the test.  Pretty impressive!  Needless to say, we are pretty proud of her!

February 14th

Valentines Day.  I don't think I was very motivated this year for Valentines Day.  I didn't go all out like I sometimes do.  

 This was the breakfast table I set.  Each kid got some kind of sugary cereal with a little valentine note attached to it.  

Noah woke up late...eating his "Loop Loops".

For their lunches, I usually cut their sandwiches into heart shapes.  This year I also used a cookie cutter that was supposed to be lips, but Lydia turned hers upside down to be a mustache.  

This was Noah's lunch.  Hot dogs shaped as a heart, with a cheese arrow, heart strawberries, pink yogurt and kisses.  

 When the kids got home from school, I had a math activity for them to do if they wanted. 

Paige practicing piano--all decked out in hearts and pink.  Cute!

 We had our usual dinner-- heart shaped pizza and salad.  Garrett brought everyone flowers and chocolates.

Last year, after our dinner we played some "Minute to Win it" games.  That was pretty fun.  So, I planned some games for this year, but I don't think I was that into it this year.  It wasn't as fun.  Coming up with new things to do is hard.  

 This first thing we did was pretty fun.  Earlier in the day, I had most of the kids write a secret message on a white heart with a white crayon.  Then after dinner, I brought out some watercolors and they had to paint over the heart to read the message.  Some worked better than others, but it was fun.  

 

I found this "Candy Relay/Obstacle Course" on pinterest and had to try it.  It was cute, but messy.  They were supposed to blow the contents of the pixie stick out of the circle using the licorice stick as a straw, but that was so messy.  So they ended up licking it off the paper.  Still messy.  Oh well.  

Setting up his candy

 Waiting for the instructions

 Licking up the pixie stick

Eating the M&M's because they couldn't do the math at the end.  Not Garrett--just the younger 2.  It was fun.  My kids were way jacked up on candy by the end of the night.  

Then we did a heart toss.  I also found it on pinterest.

 I made these two hearts out of poster board and Bella volunteered to color them.  Then I hung them over a railing upstairs.  Then I just crumpled up some paper for the kids to throw.  The idea was to get the "balls" through the hearts.  Only the 3 younger ones did this one.  

The, we had a race to see who could get the most hearts in a container the fastest.  Noah loved this one.  He raced against Paige and then against Bella and then they were done.

Our last activity was a conversation heart Bingo.  

 We lost Maggie after the candy relay.  

 Notice the red heart on Noah's shirt that Garrett 'placed' on Noah's shirt without Noah's knowledge.  

After our games, we opened up the Valentines Day package from Grandma and Grandpa Hansen.  They are always so excited to get their packages!

 These monkey's that she sent were such a big hit!  They loved them and are still playing with them today.  Especially Bella!

And then I had forgotten that I got them some stuff, so I pulled those out before we sent them off to bed.  

 This is what was inside their goody bags.  I tend to buy food because we have enough toys--everyone likes little treats, right?  

And this was in Garrett's goody bag.  

Feb. 15th

Maggie had another basketball game. So here are a few pictures.  

 She loves being able to jump for the ball at the beginning.  She usually gets it to her team, too. 

 She has done so much better this year.  She's fast and she's aggressive.  She just needs to work on her shooting.  

Feb. 17th.

We finally got around to getting Paige's birthday pictures taken at the mall.  They turned out really cute.  

 this one is my favorite!

They suggested that I get in the picture, too since we both had stripes on, but I didn't really want to since I had a big ol' red cold sore above my lip.  Oh well! 

Well, this is getting a bit long, so I'll finish the rest of February next time.