Beautiful Life: February 2012

Valentine's Party Girl's Night

Ok - this night was a blast! I feel like I got to know these fabulous ladies better and we laughed A LOT! Love letter mad libs was hilarious and a little bit scandalous. =) Hearing cute stories about everyone and their hubbies was awesome. We also looked at wedding pics, listened to everyone's "songs", and had a gift exchange. I am excited for the next girl's night party!

Here we are being normal.

And the weird shots. Haha!

Catelin and Cassity

Cassity, Amy, Sharla, and Shannon

Emily, Lindsay, and Ashley

Janet and Cindy

Margaret, Me, and Emily

Sharla and Shannon

Lindsay and Amy

Myriam, Cassity, and Sydney

Sydney and Lindsay crack me up so much!

Sharla, Shannon, and Maria

Thanks for the great night girls!

Happy Valentine's Day!

We got a little pre-Valentine's day surprise! SNOW!

You can't see it in these pictures but it was there. And the snowflakes were big and beautiful. It was gone the next day but we enjoyed it for a minute.

I took the girls out of school early the Monday before V-day so that we could bake and decorate dozens of sugar cookies! We had fun delivering them later that night for FHE. In keeping with tradition we didn't deliver all the plates we had planned to deliver though. Oh well. =)

My little love bugs

Nathan and I got to go on a fun date to Del Friscos (which is delicious but a little to fancy for me!) and then we went and saw The Vow. Which was boring. I think we are the only people in the world that didn't like it though!

I didn't get any pictures but we had heart shaped pancakes and strawberry syrup for breakfast and the kids each got a little box of chocolates and love notes from us. They had quite the stack of love letters for us too! I'm so grateful I got to spend the day of love with those I love best - my kids and my husband!

A Visit From the Vellingas!

We love the Vellingas and their spontaneity! Sumer called me on Friday and said they wanted to fly in for a day and a half and play with us. We were so excited! It had been 2.5 years since we had seen them last and we always have some good belly laughs and conversation when we are with them. This visit didn't disappoint. =) They arrived on Saturday night and we spent a couple hours catching up and then on Sunday we hung out in the morning, went to church, and then ate, watched the Super Bowl and played games that night. Since it was with the Vellingas that the annual IBC root bear tradition started, I tried to hunt some down but it was completely sold out! Bummer! We settled for A&W.

Yes, that is a HUGE pile of dishes in the background!

These are the ONLY 2 pictures I got of the kids on Sunday and they aren't even looking at the camera and one is blurry. Nice.

The night got a little crazy once the kids were in bed. Quelf is SO. MUCH. FUN.

Haha! Poor Richard - he seemed to get all the hard (but hilarious!) cards.
Pretty sure this one made him sing a song with an accent or do the splits.

He had to put the box up his shirt for most of the game.

He had to make a hat or something out of TP.

And he had to dance with Nathan! Haha! You have to watch the video.

The rest of us had to do some weird things too.

We played 2 games of Quelf and then we made a marvelous discovery. Using the camera timer to take pictures is super fun. Especially when you're tired and feeling goofy. You'll probably think this is a lot of pictures but really it's just a smattering compared to the amount we actually took!

I like Nathan's face in this one - 'My wife is a weirdo'.

Yes - we are dorks but I am laughing just looking at these pictures! What a hilarious night!

We grabbed one of all the kids (minus Soybean) before the girl's left for school the next morning.

Then, Sumer and I loaded up and took the kids to the Fort Worth cattle drive.

It was a fast but fabulous visit. We love you Vellingas! Thanks for spending part of your vacation with us!

New Years Eve Make-Up

We ended up celebrating New Years at the end of January and it was awesome! The actual New Years Eve was spent cuddled up on the couch with all of my sickies. Everyone caught a nasty cold - such a bummer. I had made big plans to head down to San Antonio and that trip had to be postponed too! Anyway, we made a pact with the Soters that we would make it up and so we did! We had a Mexican fiesta - taquitos, chimichangas, 7-layer bean dip, salsa, lots of cookies, and our bottles of IBC root bear. It's is SO SO SO wonderful and fun to have our Mandi and Steve living so close to us! All the kids love each other and it reminds me of when I was a kid and playing with my cousins. I'm glad my kids have some cousins to get to know and play with.

This isn't the best picture - it's hard to get so many kids to be excited about sitting on the couch and smiling when they want to be wrestling and playing games!

Brenan, Keslie, Thomas, Katie, Anika, Sawyer, Nicholas, Matthew, and Lizzie