HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!

We had a fun Valentine's Day around here. The day started off with some goodies.....pillow-pet pee-wee's for everyone, Captain Underpants for Cameron, a new flower headband for Maleah and a new hat for Rena. Of course, there was some candy and gum thrown in there also!!

Maleah actually didn't have a pee-wee pillow pet first thing in the morning -- (long story, but here goes)..... I went to Target to get them on Sunday night and, of course, (because I waited until Sunday), they only had 2 left. I went to two Targets and Jeff went to one and there were no more pee-wee's to be bought in the city of Carlsbad. Soooooo, on Monday morning when they were opening their goody bags I told Maleah that I would take her to the mall later in the day so that she could pick out the pillow pet that she wanted. Luckily, the stand at the mall was open and they did have pee-wee's to choose from. She ended up with this cute little lady bug and was very happy at the end of the day. (I also loaded her bag in the morning with a few extra goodies to make up for her not having the pillow-pet to open!) Here are Maleah and Rena with their pillow pet pee-wee's at the mall.....

A VISIT FROM GRANDMA LYNNE

We had a fun time this past weekend visiting with Grandma Lynne. She flew in on Friday afternoon and stayed with us until Monday afternoon. We didn't do anything too exciting, but we did make it to the beach for a fun afternoon.....

"TAG" is the game we always end up playing while at the beach.....

Here I was "IT" and they all thought they were so funny because they knew I wouldn't come out into the water to get them. And, they were right -- it was a nice day, but that water was still cold!!!! I figured they had to come in eventually.....

The kids are still getting use out of their snow shovels.....

Here's Rena relaxing in the sun with her root beer. This is my kind of fun at the beach.....

Monday afternoon arrived quickly and we all headed to the airport. The girls were big helpers with the suitcases.....

VALENTINE CELEBRATIONS

Today I got to go into both Maleah's and Rena's classrooms for Valentine Celebrations.

Maleah's class did "stations" and I got to work the station where they made these big heart necklaces. It's really fun for me to go into Maleah's classroom and see her with her own friends. Up until this point she has always just been friends with whoever Cameron & Rena had over. Now she's making her own friends and she is doing really good in school!

Passing out her Valentine's into her friend's bags.....

The whole class (looking right into the sun!).....

Rena's class had a Valentine's Day brunch at lunch time. Maleah and I both went to it when Maleah got out of school. They had waffles with syrup, whip cream and sprinkles, bacon, sausage, muffins, gogurts, fruit and orange juice. It was really fun and the kids had a great time.....

I didn't get to go into Cameron's class because they didn't really have a party. They decorated boxes and passed out Valentine's, but there was no need for parent volunteers. He had a fun day, though! Now a long weekend......what will we do until Tuesday???

VISITING THE POLICE STATION

Rena's Daisy group made a visit to the police station on Monday afternoon to deliver Valentine's Day Cards that they made for the police officers. Rena had a good time and earned 2 daisy petals and a special police station patch.

I think Cameron actually may have enjoyed the visit more than any of the girls. He, of course, thought that the motorcycle was the coolest.....

Maleah had fun too, but was not half as impressed as Cameron was.....

COOKIES FOR SALE

Sunday morning at 9:00 am marked the official start of Girl Scout Cookie season! Right after church Rena loaded up the wagon and we headed out around the neighborhood. She did pretty good for the short time that we were out -- 29 boxes sold.....not including the 3 that we bought.....

This is Rena's Daisy group at their first meeting last week.....

WE HAVE A DAISY

Rena has joined the Girls Scouts and is now a Daisy! We got her vest on Friday so that she would be all ready for her first meeting on Monday afternoon. She has already learned The Girl Scout Promise to earn the center of her Daisy and can't wait to start earning the Daisy Petals for her vest. The first project is making and delivering Valentines Day Cards to the Carlsbad Police Station -- she'll earn a petal for "respect authority" and for being "considerate and caring".

So, the vest, of course, came blank and we had to buy and iron the patches on. Even though they are easy iron-on patches I was a little concerned about getting them on correctly.....and without ruining the vest. After Rena asked about 100 times, I finally pulled out the iron. I started with the flag and worked my way down to the troop number. I thought I did pretty darn good until I showed it to Rena and she said, "OH, it looks good mommy. No one will notice that the flag isn't on straight".

And then.....Jeff walks into the kitchen and about has a heart attack while saying....."What is that? The iron? You're ironing?" I guess he hasn't seen it lately -- I seem to be better at running to the dry cleaners than getting out my own iron! :) This is a rare sight in our house.....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY JEFF

On Sunday Jeff celebrated his 38th birthday! It was a beautiful day and we made the most of it. First, we went to church. Here's Jeff and the kids being silly on the lawn after the service.....

Then, we came home and Jeff opened presents (actually we came home and first wrapped the presents so that Jeff could open the presents -- I wasn't exactly prepared!)......

Maleah made an ice cream cone on her card so Jeff's trying to smell it and lick it -- Maleah thought it was funny.....

After presents we went out to lunch -- yummy In-N-Out Burger -- and then we headed to the beach for awhile.....

After the beach we went back home and later that evening our neighbors came over to celebrate. The courtyard around the fire is where we do most of our "hanging-out" these days.....

Cake time! Marisa brought this over for Jeff and we all enjoyed it!.....

HAPPY 38TH BIRTHDAY JEFF!

MALEAH'S STYLE

Here's what Maleah picked out to wear today................

.....and this is what she picked out after I told her that it was going to be a warm, sunny day. It just kills me (not only that she doesn't match) but that each of these pieces that she put together came with a matching piece to make a cute little outfit. Like the shirt -- The McCullough's gave it to her for Christmas along with some really cute little capri stretch pants -- that match!!! The socks actually did come as a package of mismatched socks -- 8 socks all different colors and patterns.....mix and match.....perfect for Maleah!

She was so proud of herself when she came downstairs. I made one comment about being too hot and she insisted that she wouldn't be and said "don't I look cute?". I just laughed and drove to her school.....

PEGGY AND GIMI VISIT

Peggy and Gimi came to visit!!! Peggy flew in to Los Angeles and stayed at The Herren's for a few days and then we got both of them here with us for a couple of days.

Rena kept Gimi busy.....here they are coloring together. Rena was teaching Gimi how to make a girl with a skirt and Gimi was teaching Rena how to make a tulip. They made matching pictures saying "Rena + Gimi = Friends" and then they switched pictures to take home.

Gimi and Rena also had a little competition going on with UNO Attack. Here is one time where Rena made Gimi "push" and she got LOTS of cards while Rena had only a few. Rena thought that was soooooo funny! (We actually all thought it was pretty funny!)

Peggy arrived at our house on Sunday with a broken arm. She fell on the ice on Gimi & Paul's drive way on Saturday and was all bandaged up. She didn't have the cast on it yet because they had to wait for the swelling to go down. Of course a silly broken arm wasn't slowing her down too much -- here she is getting the kids some breakfast before school......

Gimi and Peggy left this morning and were headed to LAX for Peggy's afternoon flight back home. We sure did have a good time and I miss them already!