We had a beautiful Valentine's week! Here are some pictures:
^^My daily walk through the forest. Took this on Valentine's day, after mine and Jared's "date" (in quotation marks because Jack was sick so he and Alice both joined us and it was an absolute circus).
Jack and Jared doing a little Saturday afternoon dinosaur computer gaming. This game was supposed to be our family New Year's Eve present but we forgot about it. Jack was SO excited to play and made sure his best friends Bunny and Foxy were there to join in on the fun.
Alice got really into her activity jumper for the first time this week! So fun for everyone.
That hair, lol. We swapped out Alice's binky for this soft little cow lovey (basically a 1' x 1' blanket) from my mom and it was 100% a great move. She wasn't super attached to the binky other than for falling asleep, and it was getting annoying to play the binky retrieval game. Alice was showing signs of maybe being interested in her fingers instead? So we took away the binky and gave her the lovey. She actually isn't showing any signs of finger sucking anymore, but she LOVES to rub her lovey all over her face when she's falling asleep, and she's almost always using it as3 a pillow when she wakes up. She has no trouble finding the lovey herself anywhere in the crib (especially now that she can roll over in both directions), so a big upgrade from the binky that I'm stoked we won't have to wean her off of.
My brother and sis-in-law gifted us this amazing "edges only" brownie pan for Christmas. I found a brownie mix that is dairy and soy free (Duncan Hines), and thus my Valentine's Day sweet tooth was so satisfied.
^^Valentine bb with some rogue tp squares for her constantly runny nose. Very excited to leave sick season in the dust.
Ok, so this is going to sound very lame for a Valentine's date (and honestly it kind of was lame), but the premise was great! One of mine and Jared's favorite dates when we're visiting Utah is to put Jack to bed at my parents' house and then take off to watch the sun set from Squaw Peak. We always stop at Harmons first and pick out a fancy cheese and a loaf of crusty bread. Then we each choose a fancy bottled drink. Then we have a little picnic up on Squaw Peak and talk and watch the sunset. It checks all the boxes for both of us.
So anyway, Jared doesn't work Tuesdays. We were so excited to be able to do a day date while Jack was at preschool! We both had this Valentine's date idea separately and it seemed great. We were going to stop by our IGA and load up on some specialty snacks, then drive up to the only lookout point anywhere near us (off a little side road 20 minutes into the Mountain Loop highway in our town). Then have a cute car picnic Valentine's lookout date. Easy. Cheap. No crowds. Not stressful/public if the baby started crying. No worries about hidden dairy/soy in a restaurant. Great. Then Jack got sick. Yet another cold. It was borderline, and we thought we might be able to get away with sending him to preschool. But 5 minutes before preschool the coughing was getting worse so we made the split decision to keep him home and bring him on our date with us. Homeboy was NOT happy. There are a bunch of different versions of sick Jack. On Valentine's Day we were graced with extra-whiney-mc-whine-whines sick Jack. It was BRUTAL. Such a battle to even get him in the car, so we decided to skip IGA and the specialty snacks. Then the next hour was basically just crying and whining and more crying, and sniffling and coughing and whining some more. In the end it probably would've been a better Valentine's date to just stay home and try and make him take a nap, but you know. Memories. At least we had 10 minutes at the top where Jack and Alice were both happy sun roof bbs, and it was nice to be up in the mountains. Also peep Jack's cute heart sweater I thrifted in Wyoming
^^Another picture from my post-Valentines-date walk. Much needed time to decompress haha. Look how bright this moss is! It's inspiring me for finishing our entryway. We're doing subdued blues and greens, but I think a pop of this neon green in a painting or something could be fun.
^^Sick Jack coming in with the camera skills. Look how close we're getting on the built-ins!
^^Love these Valentine's Date crashers. In the end, this is such a short season of having young kids tagging along with us everywhere. We were happy to share our day with our sick little baby loves. And now, we only have a few more days before our little 4-year-old boy turns FIVE! The time really does fly.
