Valentine's Surprise

Sometimes I sugarcoat my blog.  

Occasionally I use it as an outlet for a little whining/venting--but mostly I try to keep it shiny and wonderful.  After all, when I look back on my life, its the wonderful moments that stick out in my mind.  So I feel like my blog should mostly be about the shiny moments.  That being said, I do admit--I'm often guilty of sugar coating.

This post is not sugarcoated.

I just thought I would put in that little disclaimer--because my Valentine's surprise from my husband was nothing less than Awesome--with a capital A. No sugarcoating needed :)

We decided a long time ago that Valentines Day is the WORST day of the year for going out to dinner.  We hate the crowds, flowers double in price--its insane.  So we don't make a huge deal out of it usually.  On February 14th Wesley and I exchanged Vday cards before he left for work.  My card had 2 movie tickets in it, and told me that we would be celebrating on Thursday, that Wes had arranged for a sitter (thanks jess!) and that I needed to dress up for the date.

I looked forward to our date for the next 2 days.  We don't go out without the kids very often.  On Thursday I got myself all gussied up, and dropped off the kids at my sister's house.  I came home just as Wesley got off work.  He then told me he had dinner reservations--at a restaurant 40 minutes away.  He wouldn't tell me where we were going, and I had a good time guessing and wondering during the long drive.  (This by itself was a surprise--we live about a mile from some of the best restaurants in Scottsdale,  so I was totally thinking we would be going to one of those).  It felt nice to get out of town, and my curiosity mounted as we got off the freeway in Tempe.  Wesley parked the car in front of a little place called the House of Tricks.  The weather was awesome (thank you Phoenix), so we took a table outside.

The waitress came over to read the specials, and started by saying "Now are two planning on seeing Wicked tonight? Do I need to be sensitive to the time?"  

I had thought we were seeing a movie (..there were two movie tickets in my Vday card...) so I was about to say no, when I looked across the table at Wes.  He looked surprised for a second, and then said "Actually, that was going to be a surprise for later, but yes, we ARE going to be seeing Wicked tonight."

AHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!  Wesley was such a good surpriser!!  Apparently he bought the tickets at the beginning of December and kept it quiet for over 2 months.  I've wanted to see Wicked for a long time, and now it was actually happening!  I just love that darn husband of mine.

 

We spent the rest of evening in a blissful little love bubble.  Dinner was fancy and fabulous, and the theatre was about a mile from the restaurant.

Wesley had one more surprise for me--he got work off on Friday, so we were able to stay out nice and late, knowing he didn't have to get up at 7 for work the next morning!

Wicked was amazing and overwhelming--just what I'd hoped for.  Fantastic music, uplifting story, and seeing it all in an enormous packed theater--I was in tears by the end.  

Thank You Wes, for one of the best dates I've ever had.  I'm so happy I got to experience my first Broadway level show with YOU.  I'll never forget that night.

...Maybe Valentine's Day isn't so bad after all ;)

Catch up, with iphone uploads :)

I feel like I dropped off the grid for the last couple months.  We were on outing/picture overload during the holidays, and then it's like everything slowed way down after the new year started. Well, it was more like I chose to slow things down.  We've had a couple colds we've passed back and forth, Wesley pulled a muscle between his bicep and shoulder, Jake pulled a tendon in his hip, and Mia's eczema has been flaring up a lot again.  Between the little health hiccups, we've still kept pretty busy though--Wes continues to stay busy with work, I've kept up with all my hair clients, and we've had the occasional fun outing.  All in all, I can't complain.  Nothing major has been happening lately, and for that I'm grateful.  I just uploaded a bunch of my iphone pictures and videos today, and thought I should really put some up.  So here is a little hodge podge of photos from the last two months. enjoy :)

I took this picture of Jake the other night when he was sleeping.  He is OBSESSED with sleeping on his toddler air mattress.  I don't know why he even has a real bed.  This is totally what he prefers.

So presh.

Speaking of precious--look at those cheeks. 

 A few weeks ago we had a little problem.  Mia is walking well enough that we really need her to have shoes when we go out--problem is, she takes them all off, and throws them.  and her feet are so small, that our options for walking shoes are kind of limited.  I took her to the outlets, and we tried on shoes at like 5 stores, but every single pair, she would walk 10 feet, sit down, rip them off, and run away.  I finally got lucky at the Stride Rite outlet, where we found a pair of boots (after trying about 10 other pairs) that she will tolerate.  It took her a few days to figure out how to get them off, but she likes them enough that it hasn't been an issue.  Phew!

 Hats on the other hand.. forget about it ;)

I have a self control problem--when it comes to hair accessories for my daughter..I just can't get enough.  Of course, along with shoes and hats, Mia rips out the headbands now too. (such a waste).  Luckily, she can't get her pigtails out, so I do that pretty much every day now to tame that mangy hair of hers.

Had to put up a picture of her post-piggy tail hair.  She looks like a crazy lady at night before her baths :)

Another thing we've been up to the last couple months--touring local preschools.  We didn't end up sending Jake this past year (being so new to the area), but we definitely did our research for next fall.  After much deliberation, we've enrolled him at the Natural Choice Academy.  Its a very unique school--all the food is organic (and lots is grown in the preschool gardens), they have air purifiers in every classroom, and the teacher has a masters in childhood education.  It also happened to be very competitive in price for this area.  We think Jake will learn a lot there next year, and hey, maybe we will all learn a thing or two about an organic lifestyle :)

They let Jake join in for a little science experiment during our tour.

Mia is finally big enough to semi-keep up with Jake, and it's so fun.

A few weeks ago we went out to dinner at Oregano's with my sisters family.  The weather was so nice, the boys stayed entertained on their I-pads, and the babies were so happy in their high chairs.  It was very low stress for a dinner with kids and almost felt like a double date!  Thanks for a fun night guys! :)

This is Mia's "I didn't get my way" face.  She pulls it a lot, especially when we stop her from digging through the trash like a homeless man.

 I don't know when she is going to get more teeth.  My favorite descriptions of her (from friends) were a "saber tooth" and a "can opener".  I mostly think she just looks like a mouse. :)

A couple weeks ago I had the opportunity to do hair for a clients wedding.  I used to do wedding hair all the time, but the past couple years I've been more focused on cuts and colors.  It was a wonderful experience, and reminded me how much I love hair design.  It was the reason I decided to do beauty school in the first place.  Wish I did it more often!  I'll post up a pic of the bride when I get a decent one.

We also attended her wedding.  Wesley had a few friends that lived down here before we came, and I've slowly gotten to know them all since we moved here.  The bride is in that circle of friends too, and it was fun to hang out with everyone.  The reception was so pretty, the food was yummy--all in all a great night :)

 Wes and his buddies.  They passed Mia around all night, and it made everything super low stress for me--thanks guys!

 Last but not least--Last weekend my sister surprised her husband with a weekend getaway for his 30th birthday.  We watched Sawyer and Violet from Friday around 11 until Saturday evening.  The kids had a fun time together, and I discovered a newfound respect for parents of twins.  We had a good time, but 4 kids under 4 years old=chaos.  Also, I got a lot of weird looks and comments every time I went outside with all 4 of them.  Seriously, do these two look like twins to you? no I didnt think so--  You never know I guess :)

Love these girls!

Stayed tuned.  My next post will be a fun one :)

Christmas and New Years

Wesley's new job wouldn't let him have any extra time off this Christmas, so we didn't end up flying to Virginia with the rest of my family for the holidays.  I was kinda bummed when we found out a few months ago, and contemplated just going alone with the kids the day after Christmas. But then we decided to plan a trip to Disneyland for the end of February with my whole family, and since I knew we would all be seeing each other soon enough, we decided to just have a quiet little Christmas at home.  Although I missed being with everyone, I still felt like we had a wonderful celebration.  Jake is almost four, so he really understood what was going on, and that made everything so much more exciting!! I took a lot of videos during the week with my early Christmas present from Wesley (an Iphone 4s!! woohoo!!!!) but for some reason, blogger isn't letting me post them up on here.  If you want to see any of them though, I did put up a few of them on facebook.  I pulled together a bunch of photos from Christmas and New Years, so I will just summarize the holidays through those :)

On Christmas Eve day, Jake and I frosted sugar cookies and did a gingerbread house together.  I don't know if we enjoyed the activity or eating all the goodies more :)

 On Christmas Eve, I made a traditional German dinner--Bratwurst, mashed potatoes and sauerkraut.  I'm so glad Wesley likes to eat that stuff as much as I do, because it's one of my favorite Christmas Eve dinners!  (also, my kraut recipe is awesome, thanks for passing it on mom!)  

After dinner we opened up our Christmas Jammies, and put out a plate of cookies and milk for Santa, and a clementine for the reindeer (I forgot to buy carrots..Jake was very concerned that the reindeer wouldn't be able to peel the clementine....   we assured him that Santa would do it for them)

Instead of reading the nativity story from the scriptures, this year we just watched the new nativity video that the church released.  Its such a good version of it, really made the story come to life!

(this was the only picture I got of Mia in her nightgown--she runs away everytime I bring out the camera lately)

After the kids went to bed, "santa" came and assembled toys, stuffed stockings, and laid everything under the tree.

My mom made the stockings for the kids--she makes one for everybody that comes into our family.  I love them!  Mine is 25 years old :)  Mia's is brand new!

Santa came!! ;)

p.s.  Big thanks to my mom for putting so much thought into the kids gifts--even though we weren't in Virginia for Christmas, she bought/wrapped all kinds of little gifts and stocking stuffers for everyone, and mailed them to us.  It was obvious that she put a lot of thought and work into it.  Another great thing--my dad had us create a wish list on Amazon for the kids, full of things that they would really enjoy--and they just picked stuff from the list and had them shipped straight to our house.  It was so awesome!  

 that night we had Jake sleep on his airbed in our room, so that he wouldn't run to the living room before we woke up in the morning.  We wanted to go out first and tape his reaction--I wish blogger would let me post up those videos because they are fantastic.  Needless to say, he was one very happy boy!

He collected his haul in a big cardboard box, and in true Jake fashion, cleaned up wrapping paper as he went.

 Mia was a happy girl, as usual!  She loved unwrapping everything, pushing buttons on her toys, and eating the wrapping paper :)

 We all ended up feeling pretty spoiled that morning--Jake was so excited about his new basketball hoop! (it's supposed to hang over a door, but we just put it over his art easel instead)

 Wes and I got a few special surprises this year too!  We were told not to open a few of the packages that my parents sent, until Christmas.  My dad got all his son-in-laws remote control Ferrari's that you can control with any Apple device.  Wes was very excited to set it up with my new iphone.  Then, we opened the very last package and it was ...........   An IPAD2!!!!!!! We were so surprised!!  (we are now a fully loaded Apple family, and it's wonderful!!)

 Another super special surprise--my mom had a bunch of my childhood home videos converted into DVDs.  Jake and I have loved watching those together :)

 Wesleys parents bought Jake a bike for Christmas when they were here for Thanksgiving.  We ended up deciding to take that one back to Costco--it was just too big for him, and plus, we were very interested in getting him a balance bike.  It was definitely the right choice, and within a couple weeks he was riding and balancing like a pro!  Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa Hurst!!!

Jake has been wanting his own "jake sized" guitar for a long time--and he got one from Omi and Opi for Christmas!  He's getting pretty good at strumming, and soon I'm going to try and teach him some chords :)

 Mia is happy to play with just about everything, but that activity table in the background of this photo is a definite fav of hers!

We went to church at 1 that day.  After church we put the kids down while I worked on dinner, and then later a friend of Wesley's came and spent that night, and the day after Christmas with us.  It was nice to see him, and it was fun having a fuller house. :)

We went to the Zoo for New Year's Eve day.  They did a fun event for kids ("Noon" Years Eve), with big piles of snow, and a Radio Disney celebration.  They even passed out sparkling cider and did a countdown to noon--it was fun being able to experience the countdown with Jake, who is way too young to stay up for the real event :)

Mia carried around her new Tinkerbell barbie all day--by the neck.

 Jake really misses the snow in Utah, so he really enjoyed this!

Terrible self portrait on my phone, but still funny--this was a few minutes before the countdown.

Is my daughter throwing out gang signs?

She cracks me up.

New Years day was a very "new day" in our family, because Jake graduated from Nursery and started Primary!!! I can't believe my baby boy is a Sunbeam--where did the time go?

After we dropped him off for class, I watched him from the hall, sitting so nicely in his chair, and felt a lump forming in my throat.  I quietly motioned to Wesley that we should step outside for a minute.  I walked ahead of him, straight out the door into the fresh air.  Just as Wesley said "you're gonna cry aren't you" I burst into (loud) tears.  Looking back, it was probably kinda funny.  But at the time, I felt so overwhelmed.  It's such a strange feeling for a mom--on the one hand, you are excited for each milestone, excited that your child is growing and learning.  But I also just want him to be my sweet innocent little boy forever!  It's irrational, but thats the reality of it--at least for me it is.

I had a good cry, and then felt much better.  And when we picked him up from class, it was obvious that he was very happy and proud to be a Sunbeam!

 Another year is over--can't believe it.  It was a wonderful holiday season, and now we have a fresh new year to plan all kinds of new adventures!! Stay tuned!