Valentines Day

We started doing the prep work for Vday on Wednesday. After picking Bri up from school we went back to Grammy's, put big boy down for his nap, and then began getting Bri's Valentines ready for her friends. She insisted on writing all of her classmates name down and it took a lot of time. It was so worth it. She was so proud of her work. She wanted them to be perfect. When we would mess up letters (her lower case "e" she writes upside down for some reason) she would HAVE to start over. We wrote Oaklie six times. She then had a sleepover with Grammy and Papa while Bronson and I went to help dip strawberries and package cookies. I can't even remember how many we did that night. It wasn't a ton though. We only had one minor disaster as we were finishing.  Julie was hauling strawberries to her car. (We would put one dozen boxes in a fruit box and haul them that way.) strawberries to her car she was having Bronson open and close the door for her. We assume he just figured he would help more so he went and grabbed one of the boxes holding a dozen boxes. He pulled it off the table and it went crashing to the floor. All we hear is a crash and then Bronson saying, over and over again, "Oh NO!! Oh no!!" We ran in there and he had his hands on his little cheeks and he was squatting over the mess. We all just laughed and laughed. The berries were fine too. After that Bronson went home with Jake and we went to the drill review to watch the girls dance. It was so much fun. They did so good! Thursday morning Bronson and I were at the Michaelson's around 8:30. We dipped strawberries, raspberries, and packaged cookies all morning. Bronson played hard and was a good little boy. Sweet Elly volunteered to sit at my house while Bronson napped, and so at 11 I took him home. Elly and Haddy just played while Bronson slept for FOUR hours. My mom and Bri showed up and got right to work. Between the kids, the dipping, the driving and delivering, and the visiting it was a project. We have fun though. We worked until about 8 Thursday night and then threw in the towel. This morning we were there again pretty early. Bronson and Bri loved playing with their sweet cousins all day, and we loved finishing off all the strawberries with plenty of time left in the day! Bronson didn't take his nap until 3 though (that's when we finished, and today Elly had sick kids to baby-sit). He slept until 6 so he's still awake. It was nice though. I got a good nap in, and a nice run in as well. What a perfect Valentines Day! In total we dipped 25-30 dozen raspberries, 486 dozen strawberries (plus the 20 dozen we all kept for our families), and we made 200 cookies. At 6:30 when I went to the store there was only one box of strawberries left, 6 raspberries, and 15 assorted chocolates. I think it was another successful year!

Last Sunday the kids had a blast playing hospital. Poor Mar...

 Gma, this is Lucy's brother… He's big.

 My kids have spent every second they can outside. They are either riding horses or four wheelers. We are itching for spring!

 Our Granny Ann's sign hanging in the window…. Our strawberries look way better than that. I wish they would have used one of our pictures. We were kind of embarrassed. 

 This was a pretty common sight. We would drop strawberries off and hurry over to the cooler to see how they were selling. Then we would hurry home to make more!

 I spent most of my time boxing with Andre.

 Jake surprised me with beautiful flowers. He claims Vday is a lot easier with Josie around. ;)

 Thursday night we had some bad miscommunication. Barry called and said he had Jens and Cy with him at home but he had to leave. Jake was heading over to do chores with Bronson, and so we said they wouldn't be home alone. All Jake heard was me say go to Grandpa's cause the little boys are alone. When he pulled in to do chores Grandpa was still there so he assumed they were fine again. Andre had called Ben in the meantime and said, "Grandpa is leaving so go straight over there and pick up Cy and Jens." We all thought she talked to Ben, but Tytan had answered his phone. He assured his mom they were on their way to Grandpa's, but forgot to tell his Dad that his little brother was inside hone alone. So, Jake and Ben met up and decided to go test drive Ben's new truck. Andre and I joked that it must be a lot of fun with all those little boys. We then had them go get pizza, and it took forever. They finally showed up and Donny said, "We need to call Grandpa and have him bring Cy and Jens over for some pizza." We all froze and started looking for Cy and Jens. Ben had NO idea he was supposed to get them, Jake thought they were with Grandpa, and we all knew Grandpa was gone and had been for at least an hour and a half. Ben rushed over to Grandpa's and the boys were gone. Luckily, Jens drew a map explaining their location. They had just gone back to the Laws'. Jens claimed his house isn't as scary because he has netflix. So funny now that they are fine!

 Bronson and Rowdy are going to be the best of friends. They played all day. Laughing away. Rowdy calls him "Little Brother." So cute. They laid like this for 5-10 minutes this morning watching Micky Mouse.