Our Valentine’s Day was filled with simple fun. We made German pancakes for breakfast, had a delicious dinner of shrimp and scallops and I fell asleep as Ryan was reading aloud to Chase before 9 p.m. I was exhausted and a cozy Valentine’s Day at home was all I wanted. I also absolutely loved looking through our boys’ Valentines with them after school. Does anyone else remember overanalyzing Valentines from your elementary school crush to see if maybe there was any hidden meaning in the little cardboard Valentine they tore out of a pack of 12 just for you?
Our big kids’ school has a tradition where they do a short poem for each kid in their class rather than a traditional Valentine (they have more than a month to work on them) and it’s so cute to read little snapshots into how their classmates view them at school. Chase was also awfully sweet and followed his class Valentine format to make Valentines for me and Ryan as well.
You know that one is going in my “keeper” pile.
Our Valentine’s Day was wonderful in its simplicity and we continued more of our fun on Saturday!
Saturday
The cold, wet weather continued through the weekend but we still managed to make the most of it. I’ve been meaning to better organize the boys’ art supplies (specifically their markers, crayons, gel crayons, etc.) and finally got around tackling this task on Saturday.
I used this storage bin to organize everything and it worked well because the inner bins were long enough to hold colored pencils and Crayola Clicks markers which wasn’t the case with other craft organization bins we’ve tried (and returned) in the past.
Here’s the before:
And the after:
(Still loving our Walmart cane cabinets so much!)
Oh happy day!
Since we had a bunch of broken crayons on our hands after going through everything, we decided to give homemade heart crayons a go. My mom sent me pictures of a similar project she did with my sister’s kids which inspired me to try it with our boys.
Two tips we found extra helpful: 1. Place the crayons in warm water to soak before peeling and breaking them up into small pieces. This will make the paper easier to peel off and the crayons easier to break. 2. Overfill your silicone molds with the crayon pieces. The crayons melt down quite a bit!
We then baked the crayons in the oven at 350 degrees until all the pieces were melted (our molds were rather small, so ours were done in less than 10 minutes) and then we left them out to cool until they were completely hard.
The boys got a kick out of this project and now we have some fun heart crayons to use for various craft projects!
Once craft time was done, it was late in the morning and we were all ready for our big adventure of the day: Our annual Valentine’s Day Mission!
When Ryan and I were dating, we used to split up at the same time on Valentine’s Day, set a budget and then come back together to swap little surprises. This is now a tradition we love doing with our boys! We divided up into teams at Target — Ryan and Ryder and then me, Chase and Rhett — and the boys spent about 30 minutes shopping for a little surprise or two for each other.
The boys get SO into it every year and it’s always a lot of fun for me and Ryan to hear the thought process behind the gifts they choose for each other. (Legos reigned supreme for the big kids this year while Rhett was thrilled with a new Paw Patrol toy Ryder selected for him.)
We ended our fun with cake pops (for the boys) and chai lattes (for me and Ryan) and had such a fun time. Our boys truly look forward to this day all year long and it’s been such a treasured tradition for our family!
Since the rain was still coming down hard outside, we figured we should continue with the indoor fun and ended up driving to Great Wolf Lodge.
Last week, at a birthday party, another mom told me the ultimate Great Wolf Lodge hack for kids who love MagiQuest: You can go to GWL and pay only $15 to activate a MagiQuest wand and do MagiQuest all over the hotel without paying for a full day pass. It was the best tip and we spent $30 to activate Chase and Ryder’s wands (Rhett was just thrilled to have a wand that lights things up) and spent 2+ hours running all over the place.
Eventually we made our way home and dug into fish tacos for dinner. I followed this recipe for the tacos and the cilantro lime slaw and Ryan and I loved them! (The boys opted for leftover shrimp, though Chase ate some of the fish, too!)
We spent the rest of our evening building Legos and relaxing a bit before the usual bedtime routine.
Once all the boys were in bed, Ryan and I streamed the show Landman and I’m on the fence about this one. My parents and a handful of my college girlfriends all highly recommended it to us but I don’t love a lot of violence and stress when I watch a show so we’ll see. (The first episode gave me Breaking Bad vibes which I initially liked but eventually abandoned because it was too dark and stressful for me.) Anyone else out there a Landman fan? Should I stick with it?
Sunday
Sunday was a very relaxed day. It was cold and rainy to start (again) and Ryan and I took turns getting in our respective workouts. After that, though, we showered and spent some chill time at home. While the boys played, Ryan and I carved out some time to do a couple of hours of Alaska vacation research and planning. Back in the fall when we initially began planning, we were fairly positive we were going the cruise route but, honestly, it was emails from a few of YOU that encouraged us to pivot our plans. We’re trying to be cognizant of planning a trip our kids will really enjoy and let go of any self-imposed pressure to “see all the things” while we are there. If we can see whales, bald eagles and be together, we’ll be thrilled! This is truly a bucket list trip for our family and I cannot wait! Seeing whales in the wild has been a dream of mine for my entire life.
After lunch, we piled into the car and took the boys out of the house for some playtime at Discovery Place Kids.
We’ve been members of this local children’s museum since Chase was a baby and somehow it has never lost its luster for our boys. They spent about 90 minutes running around until we noticed the sun was finally coming out! We quickly made our way home and spent some much-needed time outside. Ryan and I both said finally seeing the sun after a week straight of rain felt amazinggg. Pepper was especially peppy!
The boys are absolutely loving the dirt bikes they received for Christmas (without a doubt their favorite gift this year) and watching them fly all over the place on trails together makes us smile so big. They’re definitely in their element doing something fast and outside together!
(Check out Rhett’s mud-covered back in the above photo. Is this the 4-year-old dirt bike edition of a blow out?!)
Once we made it home, Ryan handled the boys’ dinner and evening routine while I headed out to meet up with my girlfriends for our annual Galentine’s Favorite Things night!
It’s one of our favorite annual traditions (you can read all about how we plan it along with some gifting tips here: Favorite Things) and it’s always so fun to open fun little surprises and hear more about why each person chose the gift(s) they chose.
This year my favorite things included Skoy non-scratching dish scrubbers (three of us had these in our gift bags — they’re amazing, I’m telling you!), a cute pair of socks and the Gorjana necklace I haven’t taken off since my parents gave it to me for my birthday last year.
I LOVE the necklace so, so much and the quality is amazing. (I wear it when I work out, shower, etc. and it still looks brand new.) Anyway, the backstory on this Favorite Things gift is a little crazy… Back in December, I went to the Gorjana website to try to order the same necklace for my sister for Christmas but they were all sold out. Some internet deep diving led me to find the same $75 necklace on TJMaxx.com for only $12.99! I scooped up a bunch (enough for my sister, for our favorite things exchange and two more for extra gifts) and was thrilled!! TJMaxx has the original price wrong (it says $18 but when the necklaces arrived, the original tag says $75 and it’s definitely the same necklace as mine) so it was a steal of a find!! (Just beware the clasp is a little tricky nad I needed to watch this video to figure it out. Yes really.)
As for the gifts my girlfriends brought as their favorite things this year, there were a lot of fun finds including dark chocolate, a favorite mug, a 30-day peace prayer journal, cherry blossom tea, a tote bag, a puffy pink cosmetic bag, hair ties that look like bracelets on your wrist, Kosas plumping lip oil, car seat headrest hooks (I’m so excited for these for our boys’ backpacks!), a workout headband, a car visor sunglasses clip, Hairitage texturizing powder and hair rollers.
It was also fun to chat about past favorite things we’ve exchanged that have become favorite things among our entire group! A few that came up: Collapsible storage tote (I use mine to store our boys’ costumes), TUL gel pens (they write like a dream), electric lighter (you already know I’m obsessed) and eyelash primer mascara (it makes such a difference for fuller, longer lashes).
By the time I arrived home, Rhett was in bed but I joined Ryan to tuck in the big kids and then we headed to bed to read until we both could no longer keep our eyes open.
As for today, it will be a full but fun one with the boys out of school. We have plans to make it to Burn Boot Camp, hit up a local play place and take the dirt bikes out with Pepper again. I hope you all have a great day and, for those of you off from school and work for President’s Day today, I hope you’re enjoying your extra long weekend!
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We took our (at the time) 7 year old on an Alaska cruise last year and it was AMAZING! The perfect way to see the state without hours and hours of driving and having to constantly change hotels. Not only did we get to do all the nature stuff – animals, hikes, waterfalls – but the ship was a kid’s dream. Indoor skydiving, bumper cars, ice skating, an observation capsule. Plus all the meals were included so she could try lots of new foods without pressure. She had a blast playing games in the kids club too. We’ll go back someday when she’s older and can hang with the long hikes, but I truly can’t recommend the Quantum or Anthem ships enough for kiddos!
I have 2 littles (age 3 and 1) and I feel like we cannot leave the house on the weekend because then there’s no time to clean the house, do the laundry, and prep cook for the week. How do you manage to do it all while also planning so many weekend activities for the family? This has been one of the most difficult aspects of parenthood for me. I can’t seem to fit in all the chores during the week since my husband and I both work outside the home full-time but then the weekends are spent doing chores and I feel like we’re boring our kids. Help.
Oh Ali!!! You are in the THICK of the really, really hard phase of parenting with toddlers. Our kids are 9, 6 and 4 and I promise you it all gets so much easier to manage as kids are less hands-on/needy. Don’t get me wrong, they still need time and attention but the physical (and mental) demands are sooo much less intense than the toddler years. I remember truly feeling like I could never ever stay on top of house stuff when our kids were little and I had to learn to let a lot of things go (a parenting lesson I’m constantly learning to still embrace). I can assure you that your kids are NOT bored!!! At their ages, they are just thrilled to have mom and dad home with them. Truly! I remember making games out of folding/putting away laundry and Ryan would incorporate the boys into yard work (he still does) during our home time. Please know you’re doing GREAT and you’re truly in the survival mode with kids that young. Sending you so so much love.
One thing I found to really work for us when my girls were little was plan a morning outing – My husband each Saturday morning would take the girls to the library, etc and I would have a few hours before lunch to tackle projects. Then if I needed extra time to finish, I had their afternoon nap time too. The afternoon was then when my husband did all of his chores if needed and I’d play with them after nap. As Julie said, it IS hard, but there is an end to it.
Hope you all have a wonderful long weekend! I am always looking for way to organize all the kiddo art supplies we have at home!
You should try watching Paradise on Hulu! The trailer makes me think of 24. I can’t handle anything too violent, So my husband and I are going to watch the first episode. Also, there is a woman on the new season of love is blind who sounds just like you! Her name is Lauren!
My favorite vacation was a cruise to Alaska. It was worth every penny. You will be in awe when you see the whales. It was breathtaking. Another amazing thing was seeing the glaciers so close from our ship. Your kids will love it!
We did Alaska 2 years ago as a family vacation (my husband + parents) and it was one of my favorite trips ever. I can’t even describe how incredible the scenery is at every single turn. We saw soo much wildlife! Truly amazing. That will be a perfect vacation for an active family like yourselves!
If you’re near Whittier, I highly recommend the 26 glacier cruise. It’s a very smooth ride (no open ocean) and we saw orcas (among glaciers and other wildlife). Some of the best wildlife cruises involved sailing into open waters which made me nervous 🤣.
I am NOT a fan of cruises (never even been on one :)), so I can’t comment towards that exactly, but I have been to Alaska twice. Once for our honeymoon when we rented a camper and camped our way around the state. It’s truly an amazing way to explore and I have no doubt Ryan could figure it all out. We learned tricks along the way – Alaska has pull-offs on the main roads you can camp at for free and any time you fill up your gas tank, you can also dump/get water for free too. But they do have plenty of campgrounds as well. We loved having food right at our finger tips and also really got to get into nature. It was wonderful! We also did a small boat glacier cruise and saw whales, puffins, a glacier calving, etc. The 2nd time we visited was to ski at the Alyeska Ski Resort. Do what works for you! But I honestly feel driving and exploring the inside of the state on our own was what worked best for us.
Alaska! That’s so exciting. We are planning on a trip in two years for once my stepson graduates from high school. Our youngest son will be five by then, and I think it will be such a fun age to explore all that Alaska has to offer!
I just started Landman as well and while I see why it has a lot of hype behind it, I don’t think it’s for me. I don’t like how the female characters are portrayed as objects of desire versus full people. Unfortunately this is typical of some Taylor Sheridan shows. I wish that they could be stronger female leads like those characters in Yellowstone or 1923. That said, I’m only two episodes in… maybe this aspect will get better as the season develops?