Valentine's Picnic

For Valentine's day this year, I asked one of my new girlfriends if she would be interested in throwing a surprise lunch picnic for our husbands.  This is what we did...

We each made a map puzzle for our husbands and told them to open the envelope at 12:30pm the next day.

We set everything up right before the guys got to the park.  It was a beautiful day, perfect for a picnic.  My friend made these fancy basil pesto sandwiches for us and she even wrapped them up all cute with twine.  The little ones had fun running around on the field and blowing bubbles.  Ethan had the best lunch of his life: bread, crackers and dip with corn in it (he luuuurvs corn), grapes (Oh my goodness, graaapes!), and juice (gasp!).  He was practically in heaven.  And to top it all off, he ate a strudel all by himself for dessert.  Rest assured we brushed his teeth super thoroughly tonight :)

We should definitely go on picnics more often.  Happy Valentine's Day!

Family Pictures

My friend Jenna took some family photos for us this weekend.  She claims that she's not a professional and that she "dabbles" in photography but I think she captured some wonderful shots of our family.  We definitely had fun getting our pictures taken.  Thank you Jenna for being such a fun friend; you're a keeper!

Phoenix Open

Golfing was never my thing; it was a miracle that I never hit anyone's head with the club or, worse yet, fling it into the fake volcano and the hideous windmill when we used to go mini golfing on dates before the bug was born.  But watching professionals golf is a completely different ball game.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself at the Phoenix open on Monday.  It had finally stopped raining after almost three days of downpour and it was simply beautiful on the course.

The most scandalous event of the day was when we were waiting for our car at the valet, a server offered me a drink that was "high in vitamins and minerals".  The drink tasted like orange soda and man was it good.  Now let me just tell you that I rarely drink soda (maybe half a dozen times a year), and I don't drink caffeinated soda.  After consuming 10% of the drink the lady offered me, I was speaking 50% faster and my voice was one whole octave higher.  Then six o'clock hit and I suddenly felt as tired as an eight-week pregnant lady.  And man, the headache!  The headache!!  I vow here and now to never ever consume any "high in vitamin and mineral" drinks.

Shadow Puppets

We decided to do some hand shadow puppets last night before we put Ethan to bed.  Jake and I are horrible at it.  Somehow everything we made looked like they had been zombie-ized but that's okay because I was mostly just happy that my two boys were laying right next to me.  Who knew a simple game like this could be so memorable?

An evil- and tamagotchi-looking duck.

This is our newest family portrait called The Shadows of Our Feet.

A Saturday on Our Driveway

Saturday is a special day, it's the day we get ready for Sunday.  We clean the house, and we shop at the store so we don't have to work until Monday...  That Primary song kept going through my head as we pulled weeds out and cleaned up our front yard this past Saturday.  Ethan had a great time playing on our driveway and front yard under intense supervision.  And even so, he managed to fall a few times with one of them being a face-plant on the gravel.  Ouch would be the right word.  It was rather painful to watch, but he ran around like nothing had happened three seconds after the incident.  Our work day was tiring but productive; and it ended with E smooshing blueberries in between his bum and the stroller seat.  He is now a proud owner of a pair of khakis with a rather large blue stain on the buttock area.