Valentine's Day For Me

The first part of my Valentine's Day awesomeness started back in December with me receiving a new Miche diaper bag for Christmas. For those of you foreign to Miche, of which I am now surprisingly a big fan of, it is a purse company which make bags with outer exchangeable shells. I received the base bag and a diaper bag shell for Christmas (the super trendy green one if you actually look at the site) and Danny got me a new superfabatasic shell for Valentine's Day.All of you out there who know me, know that I am not a bag/purse person. I am satisfied carrying the diaper bag that you get for free from the hospital when you have a child. However, these shells make it SO fun to carry a purse. There is a huge variety of shells, and there are several that actually fit my personality and style. Furthermore, they release new shells every month, thus retiring older ones at big discounts :) which takes a way the guilt/qualms I have about spending money on a purse.

O.k. I have rambled enough about the fantastic Miche Bag Co. On to part two. What part two, you might ask, Danny really when above and beyond this year! We acquired an old oak gliding rocking chair awhile back when some neighbors up the street moved out. It was beat up and ready for the Salvation Army as far as I was concerned, but Danny saw potential and decided to fix it up and refinish it. Well, that was months ago and I had forgotten all about the rocker. So, when I got to see it all spruced up and refinished, it just made me deeply thrilled. I have wanted a gliding chair for awhile, and even more since Sarah got one way back when in Ohio. So, this just really made me happy. I don't have any pictures of it yet because I keep forgetting to take some. It is currently in the garage because there is no room in Danny's parents home for it, but soon we will have a home of our own and there will be plenty of space to fill in our new home.

Which, leads me to part three! Not completely related to Valentine's Day, but still has made me recently ecstatic. After months of looking and walking through what seems like hundreds homes - we have finally finished all paper work, loan stuff, grant stuff, home inspections (yada, yada, yada) on our end of everything and are closing on our very first home on March 24! In just a little over a month we will be moving out of Danny's parents house! Even though it has been a great experience and we are grateful and deeply indebted to them, we are so excited to be out on our own again. So, that is the excitement that has been our life for the last little bit. I will post more about this home in the future as things become more solidified. Sometimes, these things can just not work out in weird ways. Right now we feel good about everything so we don't see that happening, but no use getting your hopes up as well as mine if things don't work out :)

Valentine's Day Sugar High

This year making gigantic Valentine cookies for the kids was almost a flop. I had forgotten how much dough it takes to make one and didn't quite have enough for three. I just made them thinner than usual and it finally worked out. Which I am a happy about because this picture of Allen looks exactly like me and my first huge Valentine cookie. I wish I had a copy of that picture to post. Allen liked banging and smacking his hands on the cookie. He didn't get any frosting to his mouth, which I am kind of grateful for because it was homemade cream cheese frosting and I haven't introduced dairy products yet. He sure had fun just playing with it though. All in all we had a happy Valentine's Day. Hopefully, more to come about the fantastic gift Danny gave me, but Mary will be home from preschool soon, so I must stop now.

Such a cute smile, with two bottom teeth.
Derrick looks a little dazed about how big his cookie is.

Mary posing with her Valentine cookie. By the way, the roses aren't mine they are my mother-in-law's. Danny did get me an awesome gift, but long stem roses were not apart of it :)

Allen's Army Crawl

I have been meaning to post these videos of Allen for awhile. He has been army crawling everywhere for awhile and is now on the verge of walking. Yup, you read that right - walking. It might take longer than I think for him to really take off. But then again he is pulling himself up on everything, walking along furniture and continually trying to walk to someone. Be it me, Danny, Mary or grandparents. He has no fear, and wants to follow us around. Particularly Mary and Derrick. So, he might just be walking sooner than I would like.

P.s. Please ignore how silly I sound. Allen brings out the worst (or maybe the best) in me :)

What Do These 23 Items Have in Common?

• 18 toy cars
• rubber duck
• bouncy ball
• wooden pickle
• sock
• crayon

These are the items that Danny extracted from the inside of my in-laws surround sound sub-woofer! I don't know whether to laugh or give Derrick a BIG talking to tomorrow when he wakes up. I think I am doing both. To Derrick's credit the sub does make a pretty neat tunnel for his cars. One thing is for certain, I now know where to look for small toys that are lost in the future :)