A few things about Julia.........

Julia came home from school today wearing this giant hat. It will be Dr. Seuss' birthday tomorrow so they celebrated today in school. She was excited to show me. As you can see I could barely even get her in the picture because the hat. It was fun to hear her talk about it!

A few days later Julia came home and showed me her little treasure box. She had finally lost her other front tooth. She had the one missing for a very long time. And not soon after she lost her other front tooth the one right next to it came out to. So she has a very big gap right now and no signs of her adult teeth. Its funny to hear her say things that start with s or the th sound.

Camera Bug..........

Lately Christian will get a hold of the camera and snap random pictures. It's usually of his leg or a chair or they turn out really blurry. But I was looking through the camera the other day and this is what I stumbled upon..........

 He told me to say "cheese"!

 Julia and her colored pencils

 Nice Selfie!

Caught Julia and I reading

Not to bad if I say so myself!

A Hit and A Miss........

My sister and I always try to collaborate and find things to do together when our kids don't have school! Sometimes its a hit and sometimes its a miss. I think this was both this time around!

THE HIT: We knew going swimming would be busy so we decided to get up and go early and by the time we were done the place would be busy. We did beat the crowds and we had a great time and everyone played and listened very well.

THE MISS: The worst part about going swimming in the winter is that you just can't dry off in your suit and jump in the car to go home. You actually have to go in and shower off and then dry off and then get dressed. We prefer to shower at the pool so we don't have to go home and do it all over again. So with 5 kids in one room trying to get all that done.........is insane!!! My sister and I dread the "going home" part of swimming. Its just so much work and the kids are just crazy. I think it took us at least 45 mins to get it all done. In the mean time everyone was probably upset that we were hogging the family shower/locker room. Oh well, you gotta do what you gotta do!

Valentine's Day.......

Actually Valentine's week Julia was excited to go to school because she was able to wear something with hearts on it for the whole week. I was amazed at how many things she acutally had that did have hearts on them. Pajama Day was Friday and she even had hearts on her pajama's. She got to watch Willy Wonka at school and had a fun time handing out her Valentine's Day cards to her class. 

We had the Love Bug attack us on Valentine's Day. The Love Bug left fun things for the kids and plastered hearts all over our kitchen. The kids loved it. Layne even said he appreciated how I make the holidays fun for the family. 

After school I made some Valentine's cookies and we had a fun hearted shaped pizza for dinner. Layne surprised me and Julia with some flowers. It was a fun day! Love was in the air!!

Fun Finds for Valentine's Day..........

FACTS ABOUT CHOCOLATE

1. The botanical name of the chocolate plant is "Theobroma Cacao", which means "food of the Gods"
2. The word 'Chocolate' comes from the Aztec word "xocolatl", which means "bitter water".  
3. In 1579, English pirates raided a Spanish ship. Upon finding its cargo of precious cocoa beans they burned the whole ship--they mistook the beans for sheep dung.
4. Some health experts say the purer the chocolate, the better it is for you. Chocolate with a cocoa content of more than 50% is high in magnesium and contains calcium, potassium, sodium and iron. It also has vitamins A1, B1, B2, C, D and E.
5. British people are second only to the Swiss when it comes to chocolate consumption. The average Briton eats 8.6kg of chocolate per year.
6. Thirty four degrees centigrade. Chocolate melts at just below the temperature of the mouth.
7. Chocolate syrup was used for blood in the famous 45 second shower scene in Alfred Hitchcock's movie, "Psycho" which actually took 7 days to shoot.
8. Chocolate is poisonous to dogs, cats and other domestic pets. The ingredient theobromine over stimulates their cardiac and nervous systems, and can cause death.
9. Christopher Columbus is said to have brought chocolate back to Europe after he visited South America in about 1504 but it only reached Britain in the 17th century. At the time it was made into a drink; but only for the wealthy, because of high import duties.
10. Queen Victoria sent specially molded chocolate bars to British soldiers fighting in the Boer War, in South Africa, as a New Year's greeting.
11. In Japan, there is a Valentine's Day tradition called", or "obligation chocolate", which requires that women give inexpensive chocolate to all of the men in their lives.
12. Chocolate has always been included on all American and Russian space flights.
13. American chocolate manufacturers use around 1.5 billion pounds of milk.
14. In 2009, Americans consumed over 3.4 billion pounds of chocolate.
15. Men crave food that is high in fat and salt while women crave chocolate.

The Ideal Valentine's Location
A tiny heart-shaped island in the Adriatic Sea has become a holiday hit for St Valentine's Day after being discovered on Google Earth. Even the uninhabited island's owner didn't realise how perfectly heart-shaped the island off the Croatian coast was until he was swamped with requests from lovers to stay there.
'It has been incredible. We think it is the most perfect heart-shaped island in the world,' said Vlado Juresko, whose family owns the 130,000 square yard islet of Galesnjak, hastily renamed "Lovers' Island". 'Nobody lives there so if lovers really do want to spend time alone it's the perfect desert island. We always thought it looked a bit like a heart but since it's been on Google Earth everyone else has seen it too and the whole world seems to want to stay here.'

VALENTINE JOKES
Q: What do squirrels give for Valentine's Day?
A: Forget-me-nuts.

Q: What did the boy octopus say to the girl octopus?
A: Can I hold your hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand, hand?
 
Q: What did one snake say to the other snake?
A: Give me a little hug and a hiss, honey.

Q: What happens when you fall in love with a French chef?
A: You get buttered up.

Q: What is a vampire's sweetheart called?
A: His ghoul-friend.