Birthentine's

First, I have to mention that the term "Birthentine's" was originally coined by my good friend Kali and belongs to her. She really does have a birthday that falls on Valentine's Day. I am borrowing her phrase because I am behind on blogging and combing my birthday and Valentine's posts. Sorry, Kali. I will never use your word again.

My birthday marks the end to our "birthday season" at our house. The next birthday in our family is Blake's in November. All I wanted for my birthday was to go to the library by myself and eat Cafe Rio. That wasn't too hard for Blake to pull off, but he surprised me by going above and beyond! This definitely makes up for the year when my birthday presents consisted of an oven mitt, a cookie cutter, and journal (even though I had just gotten a new journal for Christmas a few months before.) I love you, honey! And I tease him about that birthday often. Hmm...looks like I don't have any ammo now. And don't scoff at the loaf of bread. That is school lunch, homemade, honey wheat bread. Don't mock it people, I ate half the loaf by myself. Heavenly!

better enjoy the last year of my 20's!

 Yep, Cafe Rio leftovers and diet Pepsi deserve a picture. It can't get any better than this.

Now, for Valentine's Day. This was a pretty last minute decision to do something festive.

Making valentines

We made our famous sugar cookies, Brooke was excited to eat them

Thanks Pinterest for the Valentine's idea

Flowers courtesy of Blake

Brooke and I decorated

The finished product

We enjoyed a quiet dinner at home with the kiddos. And really, I love celebrating this holiday with my family.  It's so fun to see how excited Brooke got decorating and surprising daddy.

And while we're at it, we might as well throw in President's Day weekend. I love that our school district gives us the Friday before President's Day off from school as well as the Monday. My brother and his wife were visiting from Maine, so I packed up the kids and headed out to the Wasatch Front for the weekend.

We had lunch at Kneaders and  went to the aquarium

Looking through the otter peek-hole with Uncle Jared

touching sea creature

with Uncle Ben

Brooke, Porter, Aunt Katie, Uncle Ben

We made a pit stop at Ikea, oh man, how I love that store! This chalkboard/dry erase easel was too cute to pass up!

Even though I had planned on driving home Sunday morning, I wasn't expecting to leave quite so soon. Porter woke up at 3:30am and Brooke woke up shortly thereafter. After two unsuccessful attempts at putting Brooke back to bed, I finally gave up on sleep at 5:30 and loaded the kids in the car and headed for home!