Valentines Weekend 2009

We had a pretty good Valentine's Weekend as a family. Since Ken was traveling the week before he got home at 1 am on Valentine's Day. And he wouldn't have felt good about leaving the kids again when he just got home to celebrate V-Day with me. I love him for that!

Before he got home, I baked up a storm with the kids. They seemed to have alot of fun. For dinner one night I made chicken pot pies and baked them in my heart ceramic dishes.



Rose and me made a ton of heart cookies. Actually I made the dough and would help roll it out about half the time, but Rose wouldn't let me help her at all. My big grown up girl wanted to do it all herself.

She did a pretty good job and had so much fun. Serious fun! But I could tell she really, really liked it.

The funny thing is that after all of her hardwork making sugar cookies the only thing she wanted to eat was the frosting. The next day Reianna and Ben came over and made some with us too. It was lots of fun!

Ginger got in on the action too. She helped me make this delicious oreo cake. It was super yummy!

It's a chocolate cake layered with cream cheese filling. Then frosted with homemade whipped cream and the finally crushed oreos to finish it off. I made these with my friend Jeannie while our boys played. I really love cooking and visiting with my friends, there is something just so homey about it, especially when we are making a treat for our husbands!

Anyway here is Ginger's contributions to the cake...

She only likes to eat the creme filling of Oreos, which is perfect when you need them crushed! I'm just kidding, I didn't use any of her oreos in our cakes.

Valentine's morning we had to take the boys down to the University of Texas so they could take their Piano Theory Tests. Nathan was taking the 2nd grade test and Darin took the 3rd grade test. We haven't gotten the results back but I'm sure they did fabulous! Here's my two Victorious boys. They studied hard for the past month, even taking mutiple practice tests.

After they were done we went to the Texas Natural History Museum across the street. You got to love free university museums! My kids always love them. I have to say BYU's is better though.

This is a dinosaur they found in Texas. I don't remember the name anymore.




After the Museum Ken took us out to Dave and Busters. Actually Ken's boss took us out. On Friday while Ken was waiting at yet another airport on his way home and filling his boss in on what happened on his trip. His boss said, "Great job! Take the family out to dinner and I'll get you reimbursed."

So Ken let the kids choose where to go. Our kids love D&B because the menu is pretty much all child friendly. Hamburgers, Pizza, Chicken, Philly Cheessteaks, milkshakes, etc. And then they get a $10 midway card to play games and earn tickets and points. They ended up with an obscene amount of tickets. Like over 2500 between all of them and went on a fun shopping spree. Rose had a ton of fun playing one game in particular. And well, Ginger is just pleased with all the pretty flashing lights. So it was a good time for everyone. And especially our pocketbooks. Would you believe taking our family of 6 out was $110? I am seriously thankful that I like to cook and that Fortify picked up the tab!

After our fun day out. Ken and I finally got to celebrate our traditional Valentine's Day: Pizza Hut, Games, a CD (for me), and a Book (for him). We've been doing it for 12 years now and we had so much fun as usual.

The added bonus is that after playing with the kids all day. We thought it was okay to let the boys watch the girls in the family room for an 1 1/2 hours before bedtime while we got started on our partying in our room. It's nice our boys are getting older and I am definately going to have to keep easing them into mini-babysitting jobs to prepare them for real babysitting in a few years. Ginger didn't seem to mind her babysitters, especially since she got candy.