valentine's day

I enjoy Valentine's Day.  It's just a fun day to spoil the ones we love just a little bit extra.  I celebrated Valentine's Day a night early with sushi for one!  Jason was busy the day of and before Valentine's Day so I picked a night that fit my schedule best and indulged in a yummy dinner.

I tried to make the kids' lunches themed.  I realized after I made them that I forgot to put sprinkles on their sandwiches.  Oops!

Jason made me the perfect weight watchers approved treat!

The kids were spoiled rotten by us, Nana and MeMa and PaPa!

report cards, safety patrol and loose teeth

Krispy Kreme has special chocolate glazed donuts on the first Friday of every month.  This month just so happened to be on report card day!

I've always seen people post about free donuts for good grades at Krispy Kreme so we decided to try it out.  Kids get a free donut for every A.  That resulted in a free dozen donuts for our two smarty pants kiddos.

Bryce applied for a safety patrol position at his school back at the beginning of the school year and he was chosen for the second semester.  He is taking his job very seriously.  We get to school five minutes earlier everyday now so he can man his post.  Keep up the good work buddy!

Emmy lost one of her front teeth back before Christmas and the other one was loose at the time.  I had hoped it would fall out too so we could sing "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth".  It didn't happen in time for Christmas, but she finally got it out on Friday!  Bryce never had both teeth out at the same time so I was excited to have one kid with a toothless grin.

Emmy is 7

I'd say a week is an adequate amount of time to celebrate a birthday!  We started celebrating Emmy on the Saturday before her birthday with a surprise first trip to the American Girl store.  

Emmy has a doll from Toys R Us and a doll from Target and for her birthday, she got to pick our her first American Girl doll. 

Instead of a named doll, she opted for a Truly Me doll that she could get to look like her.

She also got the doll's ears pierced while we were there.

My mom's cousin Rosabeth lives in Northern Virginia near the store so she met us for a fun girls day.

It's not a birthday celebration without a cake pop!

Her actual birthday was on Wednesday.  She was up bright and early to open presents before school.

She got most everything she wanted and then some!

She chose pop tarts for her birthday breakfast.  Nothing like brownie batter and sugar cookie to start your morning off right!

Emmy had outgrown all of her birthday shirts and was excited to wear this one that Bryce and I had made for her.

Every student gets to pick a book from school on their birthday.  This book was fitting because her other top tooth fell out a few days later!

Nana brought Chick Fil A for lunch at school and Emmy opted to buy ice cream for dessert!

We had dinner at Noodles with MeMa and PaPa.

Then we went next door for a cake pop for dessert.  The man working there gave her two because it was her birthday.  Score!

We wrapped up the fun today with a family party at our house.  Emmy chose brownie sundaes.  Yum!

She got some new pajamas and a birthday outfit for her doll among lots of other things!

I love looking back over the years at how she has changed in such a short amount of time!

7 year old stats:

Height: 3ft 9in (5th-10th percentile)

Weight: 43lbs (15th percentile)

Blood Pressure: 90/50

The White House

Our neighbor signed up for a White House tour and had enough tickets for our family to go.  Today was the date we got selected to go.

Doesn't everyone have a statue of Abe Lincoln in their house?

Only Jason would wear a suit like this to the White House.  I told him it was borderline offensive rather than patriotic.  

The tour was self guided and much quicker than I expected.  I would like to go back and move a little slower and not feel rushed because of all the people.  I didn't take an adequate amount of pictures to fully appreciate it. 

Not a bad view out your backyard!

The rooms were very grand.  I think I was most interested in the regal decor and how nothing was that modern.  I feel like it would change some over the years with time!

Their foyer looks a bit different than mine!

A view from the front.

It was so cold today so we didn't do much sight seeing.  We drove around some, but didn't get out!  We'll for sure go back for more when it warms up.

Jason bought himself some Trump socks from the gift shop.  The perfect addition to his ensemble.  

the rest of January

A mid day trip to Sweet Frog always puts a smile on our faces!

McDonald's makes us smile too!

Last Friday we went out to dinner with some friends.  We had this date scheduled for quite some time, but it was needed more than ever after our emotional week.  

One of my friends from church turned 39 last week so some girls from church celebrated by taking her to her first winery.  Thank goodness she can now say she's been to a winery before she turns 40, ha!

Jason and another husband drove us down there.  We did a tasting first while the guys had lunch at the winery.  We had our own lunch after the tasting and the guys drove around and came to get us when we were done.  It was such a fun afternoon!

Emmy has the sweetest little heart.  She sneaked this sweet little note into my lunch one day this week and it definitely put a smile on my face!

We're gearing up for a fun but busy February!

Nanny

My sweet, sweet Nanny passed away on Friday, January 18.  We are so saddened by our loss, but rejoice in her wonderful 94 years of life and know that it was a heavenly reunion with my Poppy, the love of her life. 

We had a visitation and service for her on Tuesday, January 22 at the church she and my mom attend.  We had a lot of fun putting this table of memories together.  The sloth came in recent weeks when Bryce bought it and Nanny told him what a stupid thing it was to have spent $20 on that thing!  It became quite the joke around their house. 

My mom and her brother picked out the most beautiful flowers.  

The kids handled all of this with such peace.  

These two got caught stealing cookies from the cookie jar!

My mom, her brother, their cousins and spouses came for the service.

We traveled to Newport News on Wednesday for the burial at the family plot and then had lunch at Golden Corral, an old family favorite and where we ate after my grandfathers visitation.   

We enjoyed extra time with family in town over the course of the week!