Valentine's Day

We had a really fun and special Valentine's Day celebration this year.  It started off the weekend before Valentine's Day with Bryan surprising me with a trip to Houston!  Bryan's parents kept the boys overnight while we went out for a delicious dinner at Vic & Anthony's and enjoyed a night at The Magnolia Hotel in downtown Houston.  Bryan also got me a very special gift-- ring wraps for my Aggie ring!  It was so thoughtful of him to plan everything ahead of time and for us to have a special date and time away from the kids.  Unfortunately he had taken Caleb with him to buy the ring wraps so Caleb dropped a few hints along the way, including pointing at my wedding ring and saying, "That sure is a special ring you've got there, Mommy.  Remember that time I went with Daddy to a jewelry store to get you those new rings?".  HA!

My new Aggie ring wraps!

Caleb was especially excited about Valentine's Day this year.  They talked about it a lot at school and I think this was the first year he understood what it was all about.  He spent the month of February making different Valentines and loved cutting out hearts by folding paper in half.  He was really proud of that skill!  He even wrote a Valentine for me and hid it on the front door step for me to find:

It's kind of hard to tell buy he wrote "MOMY" (with an upside down Y) on the bottom line

And then wrote "LOV" on the other line (bottom right corner).  He wrote all the letters and did all the spelling on his own while I was upstairs putting Joshua down for a nap!  

Caleb's teachers requested that the children write the names of all their classmates on their valentines.  I was pretty sure this was going to be the death of me since Caleb is not a fan of writing!  We did 3-4 each day for a couple days leading up to Valentine's Day.  He did much better than I thought although I saw firsthand what a perfectionist he is and also what saints his teachers must be!  If I told Caleb how to write the letters he'd remind me that "I know what they look like!!".  Here is a sample of his Valentine's Day writing.  He has improved so much over this school year in Pre-K!

Caleb and I assembled robot valentines that he picked out at Hobby Lobby.  I stole an idea off of Pinterest for Joshua's class.

On Valentine's Day the boys woke up to a fun Valentine's breakfast table and lots of goodies.  They each had a gift bag from both sets of grandparents.  Bryan and I got them gardening stuff to use in our raised bed garden in the backyard.  Joshua also got a bug house and net because he has shown an interest in bugs (both dead and alive).

One of Joshua's gift from my parents was some Cars characters that change color in hot/cold water so he got to play with those while Caleb was at school.

Joshua checking out his first catch

I organized the class party for Joshua's class (we kept it simple with cookie cake and juice boxes) and Caleb's class exchanged valentines and made some kind of valentines hats.  It was also his day for Show N Tell so he chose to share his Toyota FJ Cruiser toy that makes noises.

Bryan worked a day shift that day, so Caleb helped me make a yummy meal for our family Valentine's dinner.  Bryan started eating gluten free at the beginning of February so we made a new gluten free baked pasta and a gluten free cobbler dessert.  It all turned out to be pretty good!  My little chef:

The very next day the boys helped Bryan plant seeds for squash, strawberries and carrots.  They love checking on the progress of the garden and using their tools!