♥ My little Valentines ♥

 Norah with the Valentines she & I made

 for her 1st grade class!

Together we made 22 of these little cuties :)

Here she is making the "hooting" owl sound

 

  

 "He goes upside down"

For whatever reason she thought that was super funny.

I LOVE her smile :-)

 With her finished product, and a chocolate apple for her lovely teacher!

This is the Valentine she made me at the Gym after I went to work that night!

 And here's where I'm gonna be 100% honest and say that Nolan's Valentine for me ranks up there on my list of all time favorite Valentines Day gifts. He made it in his preschool class, and it just makes me smile! I especially love. love. love. all the little thumbprint dots! 

Too Cute!!!

 Here's what I made for his friends at preschool, it's a heart shaped crayon made out of melted crayon pieces. Thank you to my bestie Tiffany and Pinterest for the idea and ♥ molds.

These are what my littles got for Valentines Day from me and Casey!

I love these little sock monkeys and so did they. They also loved the chocolate but neither one cared for the convo hearts(I think they're pretty disgusting too)!

Even though I had to work we still all had a lovely day! Wednesday night Casey and I celebrated with a delicious dinner (cooked at home by me) that consisted of Parmesan chicken and prosciutto wrapped asparagus, with wine of course. Followed by dessert, which was another Pinterest recipe.... No bake Nutella Cheesecake, it was divine and I will most certainly be making it again!

Snowshoeing Paradise

 We ♥ Mt. Rainier

We got some pretty awesome views of her close up,

this past Saturday while snowshoeing up above paradise.

One of the cool photos my hubby took while up there! 

It is beyond gorgeous, especially when the sun is shining!

 Really love this one! You can see Mt. Adams and Mt. St. Helens

off in the background if you look really closely.

Prettiness

 

My ♥, lookin' particularly handsome!

  

 Of course a fab day on the mountain

wouldn't be complete without our besties

Me & Tiffany 

This last Saturday we had planned to go skiing but, there hadn't been much new snow since earlier in the week and since I'm just learning to ski I didn't know if I wanted to brave it in not so great conditions. Knowing that the weather was going to be gorgeous we kinda made some last minute plans to head up to Paradise on Mt. Rainier and do some snowshoeing! And I am so glad we did. It was beautiful up there, not too crowded and we got in a great workout! There was some wind (we're guessing some 60mph gusts) but we didn't let that stop us from spending a good 3 hours up there!  Next up we'd like to do some snow camping and maybe snowshoe up to Camp Muir :) I'm looking forward to more winter adventures, hopefully coming soon!

My Birthday Boy

 Here's my little man on his actual b day morning! 

He was super excited for his birthday breakfast doughnut!

 These next 4 are from his family bday party. 

I ♥ his little facial expressions in each picture!

 Opening a pillow pet that he's had his eye on at Freddies for at least a month now!

Jeans from uncle Joe, 

I think he was wondering why it wasn't a toy!

We finished the birthday celebration with ice cream sundaes, since we are doing a big dinosaur cake this weekend for his b day party with his friends.

I'm exactly 1 week late on my little guys birthday post, but this is the very first day I've had time! Oh well, better late then never ;-)

Happy 4th Birthday to the sweetest little man around! I really cannot believe that he is 4, time sure does fly these days. I love you my sweet, smart, feisty, playful, and roughhousing little monster!

1 week in.....

.... to the New Year already! I have a feeling this one in gonna fly by just like 2011 did! I must say, it's been a good week so far! We started the New Year off with a ski trip on NYE to Mt. Hood. It was both Casey and I's first time on skis :-) It was an absolute blast, from the first run to the last! Ringing in the New Year with great friends, my brother & sister was the icing on the cake.

The kids went back to school this week, which I have mixed feelings about. I really do love having them home with me but, they've been doing a little bickering lately and there's been a little sibling rivalry that makes me seriously bonkers! So with Norah in school all week and the boy at preschool a couple days, I think it's been a little better. I now know why it drove my parents crazy when me and my sibs fought growing up!!!

We have had a fabulous first weekend of 2012 too! I was off work, which always makes the weekends nicer. Friday night I got to have some girly time with some of the fabulous ladies that I work with and my sis joined us :) It was Chopstix (a dueling piano bar) followed by a little walk down 6th ave to another bar! Fun times were had by all, I really love my work friends! While we were out friday night my friend Kim told me about a snow shoe demo day at Snoqualmie Pass that her and her hubby were gonna check out. So, I told Casey about it(at 2am Sunday morning) and when we woke up we bundled up, packed some snacks, piled in the car and we took the kids for their first snowshoeing adventure! It was a blast and both kids had a super fun day, especially Norah. With a little help from Daddy she made it all the way to the top! I was super impressed by her. We got home, quickly showered and I made some cookies and it was off to one of our favorite friends' houses for a last minute get together. We played homemade( aka ghetto ;)) pictionary, which was highly entertaining! I haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Today has been relaxing, yay. It consisted of sleeping in for the whole family, whole wheat homemade pancakes, a trip to the gym and a long trip to the park! It was lovely. Now my handy hubby is saving us hundreds of dollars I'm sure, in repair bills. Our dishwasher was leaking and he diagnosed the problem and is now fixing it!!! So thankful he is good at that kind of stuff.


I snapped this at the park today with my phone and I just thought it was really neat how mine and the kids shadows looked. They got a kick out of it and started doing some funny posing too, I wish I would have kept my phone out and caught some of their silliness!

Merry Christmas

2011 Santa Picture

Our Christmas card pic this year!
Our tree is the one in the background :)

Me & my girl had a special pre-Christmas date
at the Nutcracker ballet!
It was a fun girly date, for us!

We wish all of our friends and family a very Merry Christmas
and blessings for a fabulous New Year!

Trick-Or-Treat

Our Halloween night was spent with our good friends the Newgard & Riggs Families!

The whole gang
Not to shabby, smiles all around
(except for my sick little skeleton)

Kids group shot,
much easier this year than in years past ;-)

A little smile from my sickie :(

The cutest little witch I ever did see!

♥Love♥

Love our
pumpkins!

Pumpkin Carvin'

Last Thursday night we had a family pumpkin carving session! It.Was.Fun! We had a pizza and salad dinner. Followed by some yummy pumpkin cream cheese whoopie pies, courtesy of Joe's girlfriend Danielle. Then we carved pumpkins, they took up my whole kitchen table plus our island counter space! The kids helped by cleaning out their pumpkins, then they gave Daddy directions on what they wanted carved. They loved how their pumpkins turned out, thanks to Daddy! Here are some pics from the fun night we had :-)

Norah really liked getting all the goo and guts out, she did great!

Nolan wasn't quite as thrilled by it, but he still was a good helper.

Pumpkins galore!

Even my sis and her hubby drove up from Olympia after they got off work to take part in the carving extravaganza!

Me and Norah are sorting seeds here!
Seeds for roasting are a must!!!

More seed sorting ;)

My little ones with their pumpkins!

Happy Halloween !!
I hope everyone has a safe and fun holiday!