Valen's poem and non-boyfriend

~There wasan ice cream social at her school—Heritage Heights—tonight. Justin stayed home with Riley, while Valen and I went. She took off first thing to go play in the gym while I waited in line for the ice cream. Then, after eating the ice cream quickly, she headed back into the gym for rock climbing and stilt walking. She did really well with both.





Then it was time for the dancing. Valen really didn’t dance too much, she was spending most of her time with boys playing chase. One of the boys that she was playing with—Darrian—has a crush on her pretty bad. His parents told me that he randomly yells out that he loves Valen, and was heartbroken one day when he found out that she liked someone else. She played with him and Alex. After Darrian left, Valen and Alex hung out quite a bit. By the way that they were playing I could tell that there were some shared feelings between the two. When I confronted her about liking him, she just grinned at me. “But,” she informed, “he is NOT my boyfriend.”



Darrian is the one in the middle, Alex is on the right.

Valen got to read the poem that she wrote at school in AM Program today.

My Dad

My Dad is nice as three mice.
He is a sweet treat for me.
He has a smart heart in the family.
He is super duper.
He shares and cares like a bear.
He is helpful and caring.
He is friendly and courageous.
My Dad!

Mid Winter Recess

Valen had the week off from school and we tried to pack in as much stuff as possible. So here's a run down of our week:

~Monday--Valen got to hang out with Justin for the day at school and be his lighting model. Then she tested for and got her Green Belt in Karate. Riley loves going to Karate and playing out on the mat so much that she will invent a poopy diaper and need to changed--the bathroom is on the opposite side of the mat from where we sit.

~Tuesday--A catch up day from everything I didn't do on Monday. Although Valen did have Activity Days and Riley did have her music class.

~Wednesday--A day at the beach!--inside a shopping mall:


This is Riley surprised that I actually managed to catch up to her.



Valen and some of our friends. Hold still Jane!

I even fed my kids fast food! We had a pretzel, cheeseburger, and ice cream for lunch!


Riley being cute!

Valen also went to her first Sparring class for Karate. It was great watching her beat up other little kids and not get in trouble for it.

~Thursday we went to the Buffalo Science Museum:


Riley enjoying the boat sailing exhibit.


Valen putting a dinosaur puzzle together.


Yet another puzzle--this time with human bones.
This room is the one that I have a hard time getting my kids to leave--it contains most of the hands on exhibits. Riley likes the messy exhibits, as well as the live ones--"The bunny tickled me Mom." And Valen likes all of the games and puzzles and the ants.

~Friday--We went to Riley's new preschool class and had lots and lots of friends come over and play.

Somewhere in there we saw Justin a few times, watched a few movies--High School Musical 2 and the new Veggie Tales--ate out a few times and hung out at home a little bit.

All in all, it's been a great week! Can't wait till spring break!

Picture Princess Contest

Valen, age 8

Valen has natural beauty. She has piercing blue eyes and an amazing smile. She loves showing the worl how beautiful she is. She is very confident in herself and knows that she is special. She has a heart of gold and finds the good in everyone.

little girls and girls dresses from shabby baby

http://www.shabbyapple.com/p-92-botanical.aspx

Riley, age 2

Riley is the cutest two year old in the world. She has a perfect button nose and beautiful eyes. She is full of life, love and laughter. She loves taking "smiles" and being in front of the camera and showing the world how cute she is. She is very tender hearted, happy and loves life.

little girls and girls dresses from shabby baby

http:///www.shabbyapple.com/p-79-china-doll.aspx

The Past Ten Days

Instead of blogging about all of these separately, I thought I would put them all together, and not necessarily in order.


Art Day
These are my little artists hard at work. We were making a birthday card for Valen's friend, and Riley wanted to join in the fun.


She had brushes, paper and cups of paint in the beginning, but we ended up just squirting the paint directly on the paper and using fingers.



Another look at the master hard at work. The cool thing about it was her asking for specific colors and telling me where to squirt them. I would suggest a color and she would tell me yes or no, and then tell me exactly where to squirt the paint.



This is Valen decorating the bag for the birthday present. She had more fun mixing colors and seeing what the outcome would be. She wasn't real focused on a design or picture, just color experimentation.

Riley's masterpiece.

This is Valen at the birthday party--for which we made the card and colored the bag--at Page's Party Paradise. She got to climb the rock wall, play games--her favorite being skee ball--and a game of laser tag. She was on the blue team and told me that she won the game because she shot the red teams target. She has requested that we go play laser tag again so that she can show me how to win.


Leaps N Bounce

On Saturday we decided to take the kids to Leaps N Bounce in Williamsville. Riley was absolutely obsessed with the slide. I think we set a new record of 40 slides in 20 minutes. She had a hard time climbing up to go down the slide, but after several runs she learned how to do it all by herself. She also insisted that she go down the slide all by herself. She was very good at going down the normal feet first, but when that got a little old, she was willing to try head first.

At the end of the day she was trying to go up the slide.

It's not a good picture, but this is me and Riley at the top of the slide watching Valen go down. Inflatable objects make it hard to take pictures.

Again, not a good picture, but this is Valen's "I'm having a good time" face. She really did have fun, I think she was upset that we were leaving.



Sun Day--or in other words, a Sunday with sun.

It was finally sunny today, and so Justin and Valen had to take advantage of it and play outside in the snow. This is Valen's snow bunny--my favorite part is the tail on the behind.

I'm not sure, but it might be a warrior bunny, maybe that's why it's holding the stick.

This is Justin's snow centipede--would that be snowtipede--and Valen's warrior bunny.