Happy Valentine's Day!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day this year! Twelve years ago, Geoff proposed to me, so this is always a special day for us. I had to teach gymnastics that night, so we were going to have a quick pizza dinner after I was done working, then have our "fancy" dinner over the following weekend. So, I showed up at his apartment in sweatpants and all messy from wrestling with kids all afternoon. He answered the door all dressed up- I think he even had on a tie... I felt a little under-dressed. Even so, he still asked me to marry him! I love him more than ever and am so lucky such a wonderful man found me!

We started our celebration early this year with a surprise lunch on Sunday after church. This is right around nap time, but everyone managed to hold it together so we could have a nice relaxing lunch. We had one bad moment in the restaurant involving Sam and a knife, but no worries :) On the actual holiday, the kids woke up to a decorated table, homemade cinnamon rolls, and some little gifts. They were so excited- but I think all the boys ate for breakfast was chocolate... Henry says "I likee chocla, Mommy!!" Sam and Henry are all out of candy now, but Anna still has plenty left- I guess she has more self control. After we finished up Anna's morning school work we left to get to her music and drama classes. The boys and I hang out in the church nursery while she is in class, so we all have a good time. Henry enjoys trying to escape from the nursery and Sam enjoys running around the room with a plastic hammer "fixing" things. Anna has made one very very good friend at the co-op, Joy. Anna and Joy are Little Billy Goats together in the play the drama class is preparing, "The Three Billy Goats Gruff." Those girls sure do have fun together and I'm so glad Anna has made a good friend. After class ended, we went to the Valentine's Day party at the church. All the kids made a decorated box and exchanged valentines. This was so fun for the kids and brought me back to my elementary years... We had pizza and plenty of snacks- Sam ate FOUR pieces of pizza, at least two cupcakes, as much canteloupe as he could hold, and then went back for two brownies. I think he ate enough to last him the entire week and he has been wanting to compare his height to mine since then to see if he has grown bigger than me yet... Funny guy. Everyone was tired after the party, so we headed home for naps. We got a special dinner ready for Geoff and had another mini-party when he got home from work. Overall it was a really fun day spent with all my favorite people! Now we have to get ready for a party at our house that is set for Friday with a few other families. The plan is for the kids to do a craft, make their own mini pizzas, decorate sugar cookies and play. It should be a fun ending to our week!

Anna's school continues to go really well. This week we are learning the last set of math facts for the year- they are referred to in her book as the "odd-ball facts" because they are the leftovers with no real pattern in the strategy to solve them. We are also learning about paragraph writing, time zones, the South Pacific, and the nervous system. It should be a fun week! We have been having a lot of fun with the human body unit in science- Anna loves it! We are set to finish our math curriculum up completely by the end of the month. February is way too early in my opinion to be done with math for the year, so we will be starting up a separate curriculum then. It will cover many of the same topics, but in a different manner so we will be exposed to different methods and types of problems. It is also more independent, which will be a nice change. I think this will be a good review - I don't really feel the need to start up the next level right away, I would rather make sure she really knows the basics at this point. We will return to the next level of her current program in the fall. We will most likely finish up the bulk of our regular work in May. My plan is to continue with writing and math throughout the summer, throwing in plenty of fun projects and outside activities, before we start up first grade in September.