Valentine's Day... extended edition

Well we had a blast in Minneapolis this past weekend celebrating my neice Acacia's 8th birthday and my baby sister Bethany's 25th.  We, of course, went skiing on the only day of winter we've had this year- it was 4 degrees in the morning.  My mom hung out in the lodge with Asher and I was able to ski for a few hours between feedings.  Eric taught me some new skills. And we had a lot of fun just hanging out together. 

Since my big sister Heidi's kids are homeschooled, my mom wanted to do the school valentine experience with them. So on Sunday we celebrated Valentine's Day by each decorating a bag, and then my mom gave us each a box of valentines and sent us off by ourselves to write kindnesses to one another. 

Here's some of our loot. :)  It was a fun flashback to the childhood days...

My four year old niece, Evelyn, by far wrote the best Valentine's (or rather dicated to Grandpa). They read "Eric, I love you because you are my aunt." " Meagan, I love you because you are my aunt." "Asher, I love you because you are a baby." And even better, to my sister's boyfriend, she wrote "John, I love you because you are - no not that - I kind of love you because you sort of are my aunt."  The word "uncle" seems to have been lost on her. :)
 

I made more sock monkeys as gifts for the holiday.  My sister reports that they've been played with constantly since Sunday, but that they are also already starting to fall apart.  Guess I've got to add a few more stitches next time I make them! 

The best monkey, though, by far, was this awesome hat cousin Acacia bought for Asher. 

We LOVE it! 

Which brings us to Tuesday.  I woke up to thank yous on sticky notes all over the house... "for cooking" stuck to the fridge, "for doing laundry" stuck to the washer, "for being such a good mom" on the baby stuff... etc! They were everywhere!  He also sent "I love you because..." texts all day. :)  I made him this, hand delivered to work-

The mug has a bunch of pics of dad and baby, and says "I love you, Dad!" 

Eric and Asher took me out to Red Lobster in Ames for dinner, where we had an awesome meal!  And here's what I got...  gorgeous roses and tulips plus chocolate covered strawberries he made himself!

But perhaps the best gift of all was from Asher. He slept the ENTIRE night for the very first time! I fed him at 9:00, put him down at 10:00 and he didn't wake up again until 5:30! I fed him and then he promptly went back to sleep until 8:00.  All in all we had a great holiday and I am so blessed to have such awesome guys in my life. 

#Meagan