Valentine's Day.

Steven and I aren't Valentine's Day people, we both think its lame. Birthdays/anniversaries- those I love to celebrate, because they're personal... they actually have meaning. But to each his own, right? I love making it fun for the kids though, a bunch of hearts everywhere!

This weekend Steven planned a movie date for us, that's the kind of thing I like- randomly bringing me a muffin, waking up to flowers just because, renting a movie for me and letting me escape to watch it alone, little random surprise dates, etc.- not him giving me a gift on an overly-commercialized 'holiday.' Anyway, on Sunday we saw 'The Vow' -ahhh. I'm such a sucker for girly movies! Just because I don't like Valentine's Day, doesn't mean I don't have a soft side. :) Actually, I'm a super mushy crybaby.

We got the kids a little sumthin' sumthin'.

They each got a book and a 50 cent microphone. I saved their stocking stuffers from their grandparents on Christmas to use later on- they both got something from that, a little Tink doll for Ri and Cars for Aiden.

And of course I had to make fun food!

Breakfast: heart french toast, heart bacon and strawberries. [The bacon hearts looked so much prettier when they were raw!]

Lunch: overcooked heart hotdogs, so they didn't stick together. Strawberries and grapes. Strawberry applesauce and strawberry yogurt. [I forgot to add heart sprinkles to the yogurt before the picture]

Dinner: heart pizza! potato salad and broccoli.

They loved it!

A week into potty training and Rian's doing so awesome! Sunday was her first totally accident-free day and since then, she hasn't had any. She tells me when she has to pee, instead of me making her go and she pees as soon as she sits down. Now for the hard part- getting her to poop on the toilet! Ugh. She's also still wearing a diaper at night, we're getting there- that's all that matters! I'm so proud of her. :)

My little loves.

Wannabe redhead.

Ombre-ing my own hair seems way too risky [but I will do it eventually!], so I decided to add some red because I wanted a little change. I added some a year and a half ago but it was more of a maroon and looked awful. Today I got a reddish brown [what I read is suggested for brunettes]...

and the only place you can kind of see it, is in the bathroom. Boo.

It could be worse, I guess. Obviously my hair was too dark, even though the pictures on the box show it being really red on dark hair brown hair. I just need to accept the fact that I need to quit dying my own hair!

Mini Christmas for Mom

Today I got two packages, they arrived separately so that made it even more exciting!

New utensils!

They're much too pretty to be stuffed in a drawer so I put them in jars to display on the counter. Each one [16 pieces] is different- love.

And...

My first pair of Tom's!

I finally gave into the ridiculous price because these are waaaay too pretty. I love them. I guess I'm officially cool now. ;) There are so many cute ones, I want them all.

I'm already eyeballing my next pair:

 burlap with silver tribal print- eek!

Potty training.

Monday night, before I went to bed, I went into Rian's room and walked into her on the floor. Since she as awake, I changed her and yesterday morning she woke up dry. I put her on the potty while I made breakfast and she peed! I decided to give training another go and she did awesome. She peed on the potty 5 times and had one accident while I was making dinner- thankfully on the tile and not our freshly cleaned carpet. The night I cleaned it, I realized I probably should've waited til after she learned to use the toilet. Oops!

My big girl and her sticker chart. :)

So far today she's used the toilet once and had one accident. I'm optimistic this afternoon will be easy since we won't have interruptions like naptime in the way. I canceled their playdate with Grandpa because I don't want her in a diaper except at night. No breaktime for Mom- boo. Oh well, I'd rather have a potty trained baby!

She won't use the little potty, she wants to use the seat insert and sit on the big toilet- so we've been stranded in the bathroom a lot. I'm so proud of her though, I wasn't expecting it to go as well as it did yesterday.  I can't believe we're about to be diaper-free! Last Friday was probably my last time buying some... kind of weird to think about since I've been buying them for almost 4 years and 11 of those months I was buying diapers for two. Exciting!

Naps. Pennant. Phoenix.

Rian now has a new nap routine. I put her in bed like normal, then eat my lunch [because I'm so hungry by this time] and give her a chance to go to sleep on her own- which of course she doesn't! I rock her and she's out within 5 minutes. Ahhh yes! I'm happy to have a napping baby again.

Saturday I was planning on having a lazy day but my Mom come over in the morning and stayed til the kids went down for naps, which was fine because we always have a fun time laughing. :) While they were napping, J and I decided to have an impromtu crafting date. Fun! We made Valentine's Day pennants:

Steven and I thought about doing something with some friends that night, but decided to be responsible and watch a movie instead since we had to wake up early to go to Phoenix for Tristan's first birthday!

I love this picture.

:)

Love.

The park where the party was at was sooo nice. Everything around here is so ghetto, its one thing that makes me want to move the most... but I know that'll never happen. Oh well.

We stayed at the park for a little bit after the party was over, then went to the mall and our last stop was going to Ray's for Steven's favorite pizza. We eat there or leave with pizza to take home every visit. Its a tiny, quiet place so we decided to take some home instead of taking the kids in.

We jammed out to Imagination Movers the end of the drive, even Steven was singing! It was a loooong but fun day. The kids were so happy to be back home last night and usually they want to be anywhere but here.

Ombre hair.

I just learned that this is what its called by my online reading.

[I'd want my ends lighter than this.]

When this trend came around last spring/summer/whenever- I thought "Ew!" but shortly after, I loved it.

Within the past few months, I've started to really want to do it to my hair. In a couple of years I'll be back at work so this is the perfect time to do something different. Problem: I don't want to pay for it and listen to how bad box dye is for my hair [oops.] After doing some reading, I tried peroxide on my ends to lighten them, no noticable change after a couple of weeks- it'll take forever! So that leaves hair bleach. :\ I've highlighted my own hair plenty of times, but this is a new process and I'm nervous I'll mess it up. If I mess it up, I'll either have to live with it or cut my hair- and I definitely do NOT want to do that!

I'm kicking myself in the butt since just a few months ago, there was already blonde in it. Probably would've been easier/cheaper to have Tori just add dark to the top.

What to do...

Kids. DIY shorts.

Last February I made the kids Valentine's day themed food everyday til the 14th. I figured since I've been lagging on fun foods for them, I better do something so they had heart-shaped pb&j's for lunch yesterday. [Cookie cutters are so fun! I want a huge collection.] Aiden's become obsessed with "jelly peanut buttuh sanwich." He asks for them almost every day. It makes me happy, I ate them all the time when I was pregnant with him. In fact, it was the last thing I ate before I had him. We survived 37 long hours with nothing but a pb&j in my belly to nourish us.

He was picking up his books last week, he was holding about 5 of them and said "Ugh Mommy its too heavy! There's too many, its going to take weeks and weeks and weeks to clean!" haha.

Rian's as obsessed as ever with Tinkerbell and Pinkalicious. She pulls her dirty Tink shirts and socks out of the hamper and tries to wear them everyday- geez! Tinkerbell was always my favorite, I like that she likes her too without any influence from me. She hasn't been napping at all lately. She's always been iffy, so unlike Aiden, he's always been such a great napper. The last two weeks she's taken 4, maybe 5 naps. Yesterday she was such a grump! Around 7:30 she climbed up on my lap and passed out. Today, no nap again. I love naptime. :(

She comes into our room every morning around 4-5ish and makes about four trips back to her room to bring in all her crap: Pinkalicious, Tinkerbell, two blankets, a penguin and a book. And she doesn't just set it on the bed, she stands there and waits til I take it from her. And she has to have everything arranged around her in a certain way when she finally gets in bed with me. Silly. The other day she was in there with me while I was making the bed, I was on Steven's side and she said "That's Daddy's side." She pointed to my side and said, "That's my side." haha oookay! Guess its her's and Daddy's bed. We sing "You are my Sunshine" to her every night before bed, last week she started singing it with us. Ahhh so cute! Its hard to sing without laughing. Gives me teary eyes. <3

Yesterday I pinned these super cute lace shorts on Pinterest and my sister asked if we could do them together. I went to Goodwill this morning and got a curtain for 99 cents and we did them today. Top mine, bottom Rae's.

So easy and sooo cute!

I don't know how its February already. Aiden's going to be 3 1/2 this month- wow!