Happy Valentine's Day

This was our first Valentine's Day in our own Private Idaho... and it was wonderful. Landin had a fun party at his school, which I got to attend. The kids made out like bandits - cupcakes, candies, and treats galore!

After the kids in the class exchanged Valentines and opened-up all their goodies, they played a riveting game of HEAD'S UP 7-UP. (Isn't that a blast from the past!?) I totally remember playing Head's Up 7-Up back in elementary school, but I'd forgotten all the rules. The gist is the whole class puts their heads down on their desks and puts their thumb up, while a small group of kids go around and each gently tap one person's thumb, and then quietly return to the front of the class. The teacher says "head's up 7-up" and the kids whose thumbs were tapped stand up and proceed to guess which one of the kids doing the tapping touched their thumb. If they guess correctly, they get to be a "tapper" the next round. If not, the person who tapped them gets to be a "tapper" again. It was SO cute to watch these first graders playing. You would not believe the poker faces these kids could pull off during the guessing stage of the game. And surprisingly, they were also very sensitive to make sure each child in the class got "tapped" at least once, kind of self regulating to insure inclusion. (A far cry from the jungle rules they adhere to on the playground!)

After the class party, Brice and I took the kids to a Valentine's Day party at Landin's Girlfriend's house. Ryder and Landin decorated cookies, ate a mountain of candy, and ran around like banshees for 2-hours. Mazzy had a whole cookie to himself (big mistake, huge) and seriously looked like he was on speed for the rest of the night (his leg kept twitching and he couldn't sit still for even a second).

We came home and all snuggled up in bed to read some stories and then fell asleep (all 5 of us in our big bed).

Hope your Valentine's Day was wonderful too!