Valentines

I have three beautiful valentines in my life, and I am so thankful for each one of them! I am so blessed. We had a nice Valentines Day celebrating our love for each other. It started out with Mr. J letting me go to M's school party (not in charge this time-hallelujah) without J or Miss P. She decorated sugar cookies and made a love bug and played Valentine Bingo and had treats. It was fun.

Here she is with the box we made to hold her valentines in. Each student was asked to get creative and make their own box. Since I have no creative juices of my own, I have to borrow cute ideas from Pinterest and Google. However, we did a pretty good job of copying! M loved it! She was looking with me and searching for ideas for her box. As soon as she saw this one she knew that was the one for her!

I wish I had taken more pics of it because she decorated the sides with stickers and it looked pretty cute close up.(if you can't tell from this pic it is an ipod) Alas, I did not. Here is another pic. When her classmates saw me clicking they wanted in on the action. I don't know why.

After this, we spent the usual day at home. When Mr. J finally got home from class we did what we shouldn't have done and went out to eat. It was very busy and crowded but I thoroughly enjoyed not cooking and cleaning up after ourselves. Upon arrival home we sang "Happy Birthday" to me and had a piece of my birthday pie (which M helped me make after school). She was so excited to put the candles in. She so badly wanted to help me have a nice birthday-she did whatever she could. It really touches my heart to see her want so much to help others be happy. I love that about her!

Then I got to open presents and cards. I mentioned how blessed I am. I truly am. My birthday is a good reminder of how many wonderful friends and family I have. I received beautiful emails, cards, gifts, messages, and phone calls. Even though most of my loved ones are pretty far from us here in BS I felt close to them and knew they all love me. What a good reminder to start off my 29th year...

Animal Kingdom

It's a zoo around here and the Wilson things are at it again! I'm so happy that my children love to pretend and that they are so good at using their imagination and creativity. J is learning, it doesn't come as naturally as it did/does with M. He is very into dress-up lately, which helps him learn.

We played cheetah family today and got very into the role of cheetah "mom". In the middle of playing we stopped and read about cheetahs. They have a line of black fur from the inside of their eyes to their nose to their mouth.

 After M saw that she went and added that to her already cheetahed up face. Love this little cheetah mama!

Better

I'm supposed to be washing dishes and mopping my kitchen floor right now, but blogging is so much better when you have pics of cute kiddos to google over! I'll share with you:

 Please don't judge me that he still has his paci!! It's going away very soon.....

That's his "cheeeeeese" face! I love everything about this little fireman and his gear except that siren. Especially when he matches the pitch of it! Here is a video I took of our Saturday morning sledding. The kids were picky and didn't eat their breakfast so they were lethargic. It was pretty funny to me... (sorry about the terrible videography-it is very hard to hold the slippery sled and the camera at the same time).

(He is actually being a cat here).

Snow Slide

Our very nice land lord plowed us a snow slide. The little Wilson things have enjoyed it everyday. And, since the snow has melted a little each day and then frozen again each night, the slide is much slicker and slidier now!

fun

This week we made play dough and snow cream:

(i could not get J to be still for this shot!)

Icing On My Cake

Yesterday, I asked J if he would like to eat a blueberry bagel for snack. He said, "Oh yes! I love the icing!" And by icing he meant the cream cheese I put on the bagel. So, of course he only eats the top half of the bagel. That's just J. And I love him that way! I am finally getting around to putting up pics of all the birthday happenings. You know the Wilson things love to party big, so we started his birthday celebrations a week early and put together the bunk beds we got him (with help from g-parents).

Of course Mr. J did most of it, thank goodness! Then on Friday, we did a little more celebrating. We invited a few of our friends to come have some cake and play. And that's all it was. We let the kids play, ate snacks, and had cake. The grown-ups chatted. It was really relaxed and I think J had a great time. Of course, there was stuff I wished I had done better for it-like have three candles on the cake instead of one, had the floor mopped, showered earlier than five minutes before people arrived, etc. But, J didn't notice any of that and that's what matters. Part of the problems I had that day was the cake:

It took forever, I ran out of food color, etc. It was leaning. I didn't set it up right. We planned to put a road next to it, but ran out of time. So that's the best we could do, apparently. J loved it! He thought it was so cool that he picked up that heavy plate (it is on a pizza stone) to show his guests. And of course he wasn't strong enough and down went the cake right into the carpet before the party even got started! What can you do? Pick up the cake and serve it! And that's what we did!

This pic cracks me up because you can see how much the car is leaning-especially after being on the floor. I hope you are laughing because it is pretty funny....
Here they are enjoying the snacks and (carpet) cake:

 You can't tell here, but he is just eating the icing on the cake...

(Notice M's outfit and make-up. She loves to get dolled up for a party!)
Then, on Sunday on his birthday, we did a little more celebrating! In the evening we video chatted with the original Wilsons and J got to open his presents. He had so much fun and we appreciate so much the gifts he received:  two pairs of Lightning McQueen sheets and bed spreads (sorry about that-was probably excessive and unnecessary to get two-I wish somebody would stop me sometimes!). He really loves them though. He also got a  comfy pair of pj's, cute undies, two shirts, books, and in-line skates with elbow and knee pads.

M also got a new shirt-which she loves.
After that we video chatted with the original Reeds and we got to sing "Happy Birthday" again and open more presents! He got a Little Einstien movie, Little Einsteins classical collection cd, and a case to put cars in that came with Lightning McQueen stickers for him to decorate the cars-which he promptly did.

He loves the movie and dancing to the music on the cd. He can even remember what was happening in the episodes of each song. After all the video chatting we ate a quick dinner of fish sticks and sang "Happy Birthday" one last time and ate cup cakes-but just the icing.

This is my darling little guy. He is just a little ray of sunshine in my life. Everyday he is patient with me and my short comings. He loves to play and laugh and joke around. His favorite activities are cars and jets, sensory bins (he loves the beans), riding his bike, and anything M is doing. He is so good at cuddling and giving loves. He will randomly give us loves and kisses in weird places like our arms or wherever he can reach to plant a kiss. He is so loving and wants to make people happy. Although he has a thing or two to learn about sharing he really does try and wants to do right. He loves to sing "Follow the Prophet" and "Nephi's Courage" and "Mary Had a Little Lamb" and "I've Been Working on the Railroad." He is so special and I know Heavenly Father has great things planned for him. He will do such great work in his life and I am so thankful I get to be the one to watch him learn and grow and accomplish. He truly is the icing on my cake! I love you little man, happy birthday!

Snow Day!

Yesterday we finally got to go play in the snow! We've had nearly a foot, and we tried to play out in it other days, but it has just been too cold. So, yesterday it was 28 F and we were so happy for that! We bundled up (which took nearly forty minutes) and headed out with our sled. Here's how the kiddies got around:

They had such a good time sledding and playing at the park there.

You can't tell here, but that is one good lookin' dude. We did a little sightseeing at the park. The river is frozen (or at least has a top layer frozen)and you can tell an animal had walked out on it. Also, I think those are geese or some kind of bird out on it. Another river that we cross on our way to church had the same creatures resting on it too. Why would anyone want to sit their bums on ice? Anyway, it is so beautiful here!

Truly though, here are the most beautiful sights I personally saw all day:

Now these next few pics are really unbelievable. I don't know that my camera did them justice. Because truthfully I didn't believe it myself until I was walking on it.We went to Silver Beach at Lake Michigan. It was incredible. Where there is usually sand and a lot of beach in the summer is now frozen waves. Yes, you can see where they crested and in between is about six or seven inches of snow so you don't know how far down your foot is gonna go. Then you have to stumble your way over another wave. And they are slippery, icy waves. Let me back up. Before you get to the waves you can find frozen sand.

Then you walk over the waves. (Just thought of this: we literally walked on water yesterday!)

Here's M climbing on one and a close up of the ice.

Then after forty or fifty yards of this you get to a cliff of frozen water. We think that's where the shelf of the lake is, like where it gets really deep-because you climb up on this cliff and look down into a slushy nearly frozen lake. It was really neat.

 That's looking left at the "cliff" while standing on it. Mind you that is like six or seven feet of frozen water! And then you look down and see a very slow moving slushy lake. (This really was dangerous, because if you  took one wrong step you could easily slip right into that icy water.) Mr. J got some good pics on his phone that maybe he'll post of fb.

 And we didn't walk out to this but the pier looked really cool too. This is the best my camera could do:

This really was a neat sight to see. I love exploring and being here! I thought I would hate the cold, and there are certainly aspects of it that I could do without (adding ten minutes to our routines to put on gear just to go anywhere, for example). But I truly have enjoyed it. Especially after a beautiful day out with my wonderful family. We laughed and played together and that just does a body, and a family, good! Now, just in case you forgot: