Bays Valentines Day mailbox

My mom called me the other day and told me this great valentines day idea my sister found on pinterest that she was doing for her son Eli.The idea was to make a special Valentines Day mailbox with your toddler. You can make it out of something as simple as an old shoe box that is decorated with stickers and paper or you can do what we did and buy an expensive mailbox kit.Once it is decorated you explain to your toddler that every morning they get to come out and check their mailbox for a love note and a treat. Every night before bed I would write down something I loved about him on a heart shaped piece of paper and place it in his mailbox with a hershey kiss. It was fun to see Bay run into the front room first thing each morning to check his mailbox. I loved seeing his excitement as I read him what I had written on his love note. Once I read him what I had written on it I put a glue dot on the back of his letter and he would put it on a big red heart on the side of our fridge.I wanted to make sure he could see all the notes on the fridge, and it allowed him to show his daddy each morning his new love note for that day. It was special for both of us.As you can see he loved it...We will be doing this next year for both kids.
The alligator mailbox Bay chose.
Posing with his mailbox
As you can see he loved the special attention from me.
The heart on the fridge that we glued all his love notes to. I love that I got a picture that captured his excitement as he checked his mailbox each morning. I am doing this again next year for sure

So pretty

One of the things that I constantly find Bay playing in is the box of Makena's hair clips and headbands. I am sure they fascinate him because I don't put them in his hair and they are easy to clip onto things. While I was changing the laundry over Bay was hard at work making Makena look beautiful. You would think that Makena would cry and be upset, but no, she just grinned and smiles from ear to ear at Bay. She absolutely loves him. We can't figure it out because it seems like he would drive her nuts but she loves him and he adores her.
I love the expression on her face, mostly because it accentuates her jowls. She did not mind at all that the clips and headband were hanging down by her face. She just smiled and grinned from ear to ear.

Our migrating friends

Over the last few weeks we have had a large group of robins and a few beautiful bright yellow finches drinking from our gutters.I used to love seeing them drinking from each spring, but that has recently changed due to the huge influx of poop that they have been depositing on our sidewalk that runs up to our front door. At first I thought it was just dirt but I quickly realized that it was in a line right under the gutter, and could only be bird poop.Normally I wouldn't mind but the stuff gets tracked inside our house and onto our floors...grrr

Makena's Valentines Day pictures

I decided to take some pictures of just Makena since she was really happy and looked so darn cute.Here they are. Notice her hair in a few of the pictures. Its ridiculous.

Valentines Day photos

It is near impossible to take pictures of a toddler and a baby. I am sure that anyone who has tried can attest to this. I spent about an hour...yes I really did try for an hour to take pictures of the kids that I could send out in Valentines Day cards for our family and closest friends. I wanted to post these earlier but I wanted to have the pictures be a surprise for everyone.

Bath time again...

Makena continues to love her bath. People that see these pictures can't believe that I am still bathing her in this infant tub. I figure I am going to make it work as long as I can. Its a heck of a lot easier than leaning over our tub and supporting her since shes not sitting up yet. I think we bathed Bay in the same tub til he could no longer fit which was probably around 9 months. Scary thing is that is only 3 months from now...time is going by sooo fast. Chewing on her washcloth
I can't resist doing crazy things to her hair with it being so long on top and short everywhere else...hehe
Chubby girl...We laugh every time we see this picture because she looks like she needs a training bra already
Bay loves to help with her bath. He mostly just dumps water all over her and startles her but she doesn't seem to mind.
Post bath wrapped in Bay's shark towel

sleeping kiddos

I love taking pictures of my kids when they are sleeping. They look so peaceful and angelic. Notice how she is sleeping in her boots.I love these boots they are the best.
The scrape on Bays face is completely self inflicted. He must have had an itch in his sleep and he woke up with a tiny scrape about a week ago.Instead of letting it heal he keeps digging at it in his sleep and while awake.I have had to start putting band aids on it because it has gotten so bad at night that I am afraid it wont heal if I don't keep it covered up.

The Discovery Center

A number of my friends have gotten memberships to the Discovery Center in Boise. It reminds me of the Gilbert house in my hometown or a itty bitty mini OMSI in Portland. It is basically a children's museum of science and discovery. They have all sorts of science based experiments that promote learning and discovery. The nice thing about this center is the memberships are only $50 for a family and pay for themselves in just 2 or 3 visits or less depending on the size of your family. Bay seemed to like it and it is a nice place to let him run around with the other kids and explore. I am thinking we will probably go a family membership this year as it is the perfect place to go in the cold winter months and when it gets too hot in the summer months.Here are some pictures from our visit... Lisa and Aiden blowing bubbles to Bay
Aiden and Bay trying to blow bubbles Bay chasing the bubbles...he loved it Bay, Adam and Emily's youngest boy Chase.I might be wrong on his name, I am terrible with names. Bay playing with the robotic cars My favorite picture from the day...Bay on a bed of nails...sooo funny

Gross

The other night my cookie sheet fell behind the drawer under the oven making it impossible to close. I had to have Jeff help me unhook the drawer to get to the cookie sheet because no matter how hard I tried I couldn't seem to do it myself. I wish the cookie sheet hadn't fallen behind the drawer because I really didn't want or need to see this....so gross. Most of the stuff under here is courtesy of our cat who likes to play with anything that will roll on the kitchen floor but the dust now that is just nasty.

Makena and the Johnny Jump up

We got our old bouncer/Johnny jump up out of storage to have Makena try it out. She LOVES it! We put her in it and she goes absolutely nuts. She jumps and grins from ear to ear. The best part of it is that I can put it in the door way of the bathroom and take a shower and keep and eye on her, or put it in the doorway to the washroom while we are making or eating dinner. The other night we noticed she had gotten quiet while we were eating dinner. When we looked over at her this is what we found. She was completely passed out from all of her jumping. She had been in there for about 45 minutes and was perfectly content the whole time, so content in fact that she wore herself out in it.
On a side note...notice here hair. Long only on the top and short everywhere else. In this picture it looks exceptionally greasy even though I bathed her that morning.

Our favorite park

There is an amazing park here in the city of Eagle which has been nicknamed hill road park. Honestly I cannot remember its real name as everyone I know calls it hill road park. About a week ago we met up with Candace Chad and Emma and went to the park and let the kids play. It was too warm and sunny not to go outside and get some fresh air. Here are some pictures from our visit to the park.... Makena enjoying the strap of our baby carrier...By the way I LOVE LOVE LOVE this carrier. Bay being a Ham for the camera...
Bay and Emma playing on the teeter-totter
Candace and Emma at the swingset

Aunt Brenda and Uncle Dave

A couple of weekends ago my Aunt and Uncle from Washington State were in town to see my cousin compete in a college track meet. The meet was in Nampa at the Idaho Center which is just down the street from Jeff's firestation. I am really glad Jeff is assigned to that station as it allows them to bring the engine down so Jeff could say hello and watch my cousin Taryn compete. Later that evening we met up again and had dinner at Johnny Carinos before they flew back home the next morning. It was so nice to spend a little bit a time with them, even if it was short. As you can see Bay enjoyed spending time with them as well.