all you need is love.

The Valentine's the boys and I made. I ordered the Valentine's Kiwi Crate and it didn't disappoint. 

HOW CUTE ARE THESE?!?!

A few little notes for today:

1. I know people love to complain about Valentine's Day and how it's only a holiday so people spend money. But me? I like having an excuse to give my main men some extra lovin'. And you better believe they are all getting loved on today. (Hey, I gotta do it while I can, right? Those teenage years are coming fast.)

2. HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO MY AMAZING MOM!!! WE LOVE YOU!! SENDING YOU LOVE AND HUGS AND SLOPPY KISSES!

3. One of my images is part of Let the Kids Dress Themselves' LOVE post today! Feel free to check it out and see all the other amazing images featured today. And you get to learn about how we all capture emotion, so it's educational too!

4. I hope all of you are having a wonderful day! And if you don't have a valentine or yours is far away, I hope you are celebrating with a little indulgence anyway 'cause you deserve it! And if teleporters were already invented, I'd send one of my handsome little men to you for a little smooch. But since they aren't, you'll just have to imagine it.

ugh.

So a few years ago I posted this question about how to get sweet oranges.

Yeah, didn't work. No matter what (big navel, feel of the peel, whatever) the oranges/tangerines/clementines I buy are always bitter. Well, except the one time I bought a bag of oranges from a guy off the side of the road. But even those weren't really sweet, they just weren't bitter.

I bought a bag of clementines from Costco the other day and was so excited to eat them. Well, these are the worst I've ever had. I had to spit it out it was so bitter. And now I have a giant bag of inedible clementines. Thanks Costco.

So I'm done. No more orange buying for me. I'm gonna stick with orange juice.

sunday best: baby fashion

So... We're still sick. Thankfully on the upswing (FINALLY), but still sick. So instead of wearing a cute outfit to church yesterday, I wore sweatpants at home with sick kids. So here is another baby outfit I love. Oskar is the only child to wear this since I bought it after Christmas... I figure he can have new clothes every now and then if it's cute enough.

bodysuit: Old Navy. I'm kind of a sucker for monsters.

Also, Oskar did not appreciate being put down so I could take pictures of him in his cute suit. So he made sure I knew it.

just an update.

While I have, thankfully, been spared the germs running rampant through our house (knock on wood) I have made up for it in sleep deprivation. I can't wait for everyone to get better.

Also, I'm sure no one is enjoying the downslide of my bedside manner as a result of said sleep deprivation.

But as a distraction, I present to you a photo from the past; I was looking through old photos today and can't believe how much time has passed. Our pre-Army life feels like a lifetime ago. So, here is a photo of Max and I in early 2007:

It's funny to think back to that time; I thought I knew what I was doing... yeah, not so much. Makes me feel for all the poor unfortunate first children of the world who had to suffer through mom and dad's blundering.

Thankfully Max appears to have survived... so far.

sweet baby cheeks.

I had a good old-fashioned naked baby photo shoot with Oskar a couple of weeks ago. And while I'm not showing those cheeks to the world wide internet, you may admire the cheeks on his face.

This. kid. I'm smitten, I tell you!

we love kiwi crate!

(photos from our very first kiwi crate.)
















I saw a review of Kiwi Crate on someone's blog about a year ago and fell in love with the idea. And thought about getting a subscription for my boys, but really debated the idea since I have plenty of art supplies already (so why did I need to pay for some to come every month?). But what pushed me over the edge and finally sign up was the fact that I didn't need to prepare anything. It comes all ready for us to dive in. Which was very appealing for homeschooling, I figured I would save them up for days when I really didn't have the time or energy to plan a lesson. And that's how we do it; I don't regret it one bit!

They have been fantastic, so fun, and I could go on and on. The boys love it too; I added in the second sibling last fall. While there are plenty of supplies for both boys to do something (like two wind cars in the photos above), it got to the point where they were fighting over certain things that there would only be one of (like the robot crate only had one wind-up). I think what happened is Nick finally got old enough to do the crafts himself and didn't like playing second fiddle to Max.

So if you have kids and aren't so great at coming up with crafts to do, get one! It is SO worth the cost, even if you have plenty of supplies already. Just look at it the way I do; you're paying for the endless ideas (you can go online to see more craft ideas to do on the same topic).

I am not endorsing them and get absolutely nothing for writing this, I'm just sharing for my friends who asked about it and have shown interest in getting them. They do, however, have a refer-a-friends program, so if you sign up by clicking on this you can get $10 off. Pretty sweet, huh?

I'm just sorry it's taken me so long from when I took the pictures to actually blogging about it! Guess I shouldn't be surprised though, I'm always behind.

sunday best: baby fashion

There is no outfit for me today since we have all been hermits the past few days while the little ones (and now the big ones) have been battling a nasty cold. So instead I present to you some baby fashion! I try to take pictures of my favorite outfits Oskar wears since he's so stinkin' cute. And while I don't always remember to (insert sad face, especially the for the stuff he's grown out of) I have caught a couple. This one is a hand-me-down from Nick, it's one of those things that he didn't really need since I had kept everything from Max, but was too cute to pass up. Although it ended up being awesome that I bought it because it ended up being perfect for Nick's first Halloween when I dressed him up as Pubert Addams.

body suit: Old Navy
socks: Target





He's got such a sweet face! It blows my mind sometimes that he's going to grow into a hairy man.