Valentine's Weekend

Valentines Day started off nice and sweet.  I made the kids heart shaped pancakes for breakfast and Todd and I gave them each balloons and a cupcake.  The red cupcake frosting managed to get all over Ashton's shirt, pants, face, hair, plate (obviously), counter, bathroom floor, toilet, flusher, sink, counter, faucet, towel, cabinet door, wall....  Why does this only happen with foods that stain?  He's such a clean eater otherwise.  Todd gave me roses and I made him a card. 

At church, the kids were coughing and hacking so much I was too embarrassed to keep them there.  I sang a pretty version of "Love One Another" in Sacrament Meeting with Maurney Johnson and Shawna Nattress and Maren Jenks played for us.  It was a short notice thing but I thought it turned out really nice.  But as soon as Sacrament Mtg. was over, I went home with my coughing kids and Todd stayed to teach his lesson in Sunday School.  The kids are still really sick 2 days later- their coughs sound terrible.  They got pretty crabby by the end of Valentines Day so we put them to bed early.  It was rough, that evening, to be overly loving and sweet when they were really really trying our patience!!!  ButI hope , for their sakes, they get over their coughs soon.  They're pretty miserable.

"Peach" on Valentines Day

Two nights before Valentines Day our ward put on a Valentines Dinner, which we went to.  The kids made us cute little valentines at home with the babysitter.  The dinner was beautiful.  The people in charge really went all out trying to provide an experience that, in this economy, is hard to make happen for so many.  It honestly looked like a wedding reception.  It was so pretty!  And the food was awesome- a 5 course, NICE dinner.  They even had a professional photographer there to take traditional couples pictures with his studio lights and equipment all set up on the stage.  Only if they wanted (they weren't free but were a drasticly reduced price for the occassion) since that is one of the luxuries people are often going without these days.  They had romantic music playing, and for a party favor each couple was given a cd with all those same songs on it to take home.  It was just a really special night and we really enjoyed it.  It was nice, too, to have the experience without a big price, or any price!  And without waiting for hours for seats at a restaurant which usually happens on Valentines weekend, or competeing for seats at a theater.

We're getting a bid on our floor plan for our house.  It's been fun, but a whirlwind to make the decisions for what materials and things will be in it.  The bank requires those decisions to be made up front now before even starting the loan process, and the builder really likes all the small details up front for his bid to be more precise too.  I'm happy to say our floor plan is finally finished!  I've been drafting it myself for several years.  Mostly because as we've changed our mind over the years for what piece of property to put it on, the layout changes a little.  And because the cost of building has gone down and down and down and made us want to alter or add a few things.  But it's been a long time coming and it's finally complete and ready for the bank and builder to say "GO!"  Which, of course, always depends on the LAND being a GO. 

We own a piece of property that we intended to sell as investment property and roll that money into something else.  But it never sold in this market.  We wanted a different property that is still for sale but we need the money made from the sale of our land to buy it.  Now a family member wants to buy our land but for less money than we'd have liked because the value of it is less than it was when we originally tried to sell it, and we're talking about the details of that.  So we have land to build on, but it might be the other.  We'll see.  Either way, whichever property, we're building and things are progressing in the right direction to finally do that.  That just makes everything more exciting for us.