Valentine's

I love Valentine's Day because of it's proximity to Abby Jane's birthday- the celebrating and partying just goes on and on! Here are a few "place cards" and centerpieces we took to Abby Jane's school party!

Thank you, Pinterest, for showing me heart-shaped pepperonis that I could use to accessorize the pizza our teacher requested! Didn't have time for the after-baking shot, but here's the before!

For those of you on facebook, this was right after Joy told me she didn't want to make Valentines or show her love to people on Valentine's, but that she wanted "to show my badness."

My three sweetest of sweets on Valentine's morning enjoying their spoils with their heart pancakes! Actually, four of my sweets- Jake's reflection is in them mirror. Shout-out to Magic Jacket.

After Daddy went to work, we went to work on strawberry dipping for our fancy dinner that night. It turns out that was one of the easiest, low-stress, kid-involved treat-making activities ever. Even Joy was really good at it. We called the stem the hair and said, "Hold the hair back, then dip the strawberry up to its shoulders!" They thought that was really funny.

Some curly-headed individuals may or may not have dipped a few strawberries, then swiped a tiny angel finger in the chocolate before it could set. She's a sneaky one on things like that. You're so busy handling Joy that you don't see Stealth Child move in.

There are benefits to being a twin!

Unpictured here after strawberry dipping was meeting a friend who missed the ballet party for a little playdate, then going to Jake's office for lunch with our favorite Valentine! This was some sister love after naptime that afternoon.

Blythe helped me set the table for our fancy dinner that night, complete with my good silver and napkin ring usage. We all also took a step up in dishes- Jake and I were on fine china and the girls had three courses, one of which was on my everyday china. Blythe is the only three year old I would hand my china to with no hesitation.

The girls were fascinated by the concept of courses, and loved Jake and I formally waiting on them. This funny face is code for I'm hungry, stop taking pictures please!

Leftover ballet party pink lemonade with leftover class party cute straws, but no one's the wiser!

Enjoying the "fruit" of her labor!

Then after the girls sugar bombed and went to sleep, we had a lovely dinner and evening accompanied with this serendipitous bottle of wine. It was a graduation gift from a dear friend of ours who had no idea that it is our absolute favorite wine from a vineyard in Central CA that we visited once several years ago. What are the chances you just pick that out at the store without knowing the significance??

Love celebrating love with my precious family and thinking of Him Who loved us first!!!

The tutu much fun ballet party!

One week after last year's family princess party, Abby Jane started talking about wanting a ballet birthday party for her 5th birthday. We alternate friend birthday party years with family birthday party years, so her plan sounded perfect to me. We started with an invitation...

we added some cupcakes...

a little ballerina artwork...

more pink treats...

and lastly, we threw in some ecstatic, sparkly little girls at a studio, and we have ourselves a ballerina birthday party ready to go!

We had butterfly masks to color as the little ballerinas came in. Some three-year-old sisters don't focus on their coloring like the bigger girls can.

Grandparents and great-grandparents dressed for the event. Bop Bop is always so game for our themed parties- after last year's royal family affair, he arrived for this ballet extravaganza dressed to the T!

This is not a glamor shot of Abby Jane, but I had to show this precious little girl who did an exquisite job of making all the little ladies feel special, while simultaneously mesmerizing them with her beautiful attire and amazing talent! She was truly so kind and sweet with all the girls- we were incredibly thankful for how special she made the party!

Christina helped facilitate the girls doing various dances and exercises.

This party was one of Blythe and Joy's life highlights to date. They were besides themselves getting to dance and try to keep up with all of Abby Jane's big girl friends!

At the end of her time with the girls, Christina did a short demonstration for the girls. The grown-ups were as impressed as the girls were! She did a beautiful job.

Each little girl got to put in a request for what they wanted her to show them. Look at Joy squirming in the one-on-one attention of such a fancy princess ballerina!

Sweet fancy little girls!! Love this.

Then it was cupcake time!

Partied out but so satisfied.

Abby Jane with the other three people of her other biggest fans. Love sharing days like this with grandparents and always so thankful for their help. We really like to throw a party, and our parents usually end up being a big part of helping to make it happen!

Another sweet moment after the party was discovering that the cost of the studio ended up being half of what we thought we were quoted. In this particular season of our lives, that felt like an extraordinarily kind provision of the Lord that we were truly grateful for. Loved our precious day of celebrating our precious girl. More to come on Abby Jane at 5 soon!!

Abby Jane's 5th birthday!

Abby Jane's birthday celebrating spanned three days, so get excited for lots of pictures of us celebrating our very favorite five-year-old in the whole wide world. We're big fans of this kid. Since she was going to have a ballerina birthday party (post to follow), we had over some of our guy friends earlier in the week who wouldn't be as excited about the tutus as my girls were. We loved kicking off the partying with these sweet friends!

On her birthday morning, barely after the sun was up, Abby Jane received her traditional birthday rose, a  tradition Jake carries on from my dad.

Abby Jane with her favorite guy and biggest hero.

The birthday girl invited her little sisters and I to join her and Daddy on a birthday breakfast date, so here we are at Panera before school.

A couple of hours later, Blythe and Joy got to sit with the big kids right next to their favorite girl when we brought cupcakes to Abby Jane's classroom.

After the classroom visit, Mimi took the twins so I could do birthday prep. When they returned the twins, Abby Jane got to open a few birthday gifts and love on her sweet Mimi and Bop Bop.

That night just our family had Abby Jane's birthday dinner of choice: Daddy's burgers (that we now call lemon burgers because Abby Jane discovered that a flavorful burger is enhanced by a squirt of lemon on the burger- it's true, folks), lemon broccoli, and mac 'n cheese, followed by candles in ice cream!

After dinner, Abby Jane was thrilled to receive a craft table for her to do big girl crafting in her room. She loved it!

Technology amazes us all the time. In the span of four hours on that afternoon and evening, Abby Jane talked to three different sets of aunts and cousins on three different continents!  A perfect way to end a FULL day!

Magic Jacket

Athleta calls it their Interval Jacket in turquoise. I call it Magic Jacket. It was an amazing and humbling gift from a dear friend last September, and it has revolutionized my winter running this year. (Obviously my ability to keep my mirror angel-finger-smudge-free is not as magical or revolutionized, but back to the jacket.)

It gets it own post because though this jacket may appear light-weight, it makes me invincible in winter temperatures. 30 degrees with 15 mph wind? No problemo. I'll wear a long sleeve shirt under my jacket and call it a day. No more claustrophobic-four-layer-mornings that take a while to get all straightened out and still feel a wind cut through. It's one, maximum two light layers and Magic Jacket, and I'm toasty and comfortable.
Jake gets a lot of mileage out of this. For instance, "Are you really going running tomorrow morning? It's going to be really cold. Oh wait, you have Magic Jacket, never mind." The down-side of Magic Jacket is that unless it's really raining (because it's water-resistant, too), I don't have a great excuse to not run based on something objective like the weather.
Coming from a typical nickel-and-dimer, if you want to make a winter run not something you dread or have to just get through, go get your own Magic Jacket! Who knows- it might even go on sale soon and you'll be all set for next year!

End It

The End It Movement officially launched today. Run, do not walk, to their site to see how to join. You don't want to miss this. Here's the mission:

Slavery is Wrong.

You know it. We know it. As a country, we've officially known it since 1863. But here's something you might not know -- Slavery still exists. We want every man, woman and child to know that there are 27 million men, women and children, just like them, living in the shadows. In brothels. In factories. In Quarries. Working as slaves. In 161 countries. Including our own. We are here to shine a light on slavery. No more bondage. No more sex trafficking. No more child laborers. No more, starting now.