Valentine's Schmalentines

 In a slight variation from our annual tradition, I decided to make tiny dough hearts and let the boys decorate their own pizzas this year. They seem to enjoy the freedom of choice that this provides them. And they are starting to get the hang of exactly how to top a pizza to perfection.

 The results looked pretty good, and tasted good too.

 It took several tries for Gavin to get a photo of us, but the heart was just too beautiful not to document.

Wyatt was really wanting a shot with his Daddy.

 Finn's first Valentine's day was fun for him, I think. Tho he didn't get any pizza. He did give us lots of love and smiles tho.

 We ended up with red velvet cookies with pink frosting for dessert. They were pretty tasty even tho Wyatt is acting like his was poisoned. He did end up eating it.

Just hanging around

Just a few of our hanging around the house shots from the last couple of weeks. Admittedly we haven't been doing too much that seems exciting enough to even pull the camera out.

We have been doing plenty of baking, trying some new recipes and of course making some of the old. Gavin and Henry have really started to like helping in the kitchen and they are actually really good at it now. Henry helped Caleb whip up some excellent monkey bread... not sure what Caleb is trying to say to him in this picture.

 While the older boys are at school I have been being as lazy as possible with these two cuties. As Finn is getting around more and more, you can often find Wyatt on the floor next to him or sometimes on him. Strangely, Finn doesn't seem to mind either way.

 Wyatt had a bit of trauma this week with a fall into the downstairs fireplace. I was upstairs with Finn, but Henry was in the room with him and we still have no idea how the fall happened. Both Wyatt and Henry say that he was just standing by the fireplace and next thing they knew he had hit his face. No stitches required, but he got a pretty nasty cut and scrape.

We have continued to go to the Children's Museum with Anne once a week, and Wyatt is at the stage where he really love his day with Anne. He could spend hours at the water, especially if he can find a cup to move the water around with.

Finn also really likes the museum now that he can hang out in the baby area and mess with everything there.

 Finn's newest trick is scooting and rolling all over the floor. He doesn't have a traditional crawl yet, since his arms don't want to cooperate with his legs on that one, but he can spot something he wants and make his way to it pretty quickly by rolling turning and backing up. It is pretty funny to water.

Just doing a few pushups.

 And lately he is pretty cute as he sits in a normal crawling position and rocks back and forth, usually drooling. He makes me think of that funny bull dog from the old Mickey Mouse cartoons, the one that would always chase Pluto. Just one more way that I think little boys are like puppies.

So Very Much Snow

With record snowfall and several weeks of very cold temps, we have had an interesting month of being hermits. Add to that a few illnesses for the two smallest boys and I have tried to stay in as much as possible. I did try to sneak out and do some intense snow shoveling one day when it was above freezing and few fresh inches had come down. Even though it took as long to get them all in their snow clothes as it ended up taking for me to shovel, the boys were eager to come out and "help" me.

 Wyatt loves the snow so much he can't take his eyes off of it long enough to look at the camera. Every day when we leave the house, he looks down to see what shoes he is wearing and says, "I walk on snow, ok?"

 A very fluffy snow angel

 After all of the shoveling in the past few weeks we have built up our own mini sledding hill on the side of the driveway. Henry was loving it.

 And of course we had some snow ball fights... Can you guess who was the big instigator on that one?

Point Loma

Point Loma was probably my favorite place on the trip to San Diego.  We went on our last morning. It was so beautiful. Great views, and we got to see this super cool submarine heading out into the ocean, hard to beat that. There was also an amazing National Cemetery there and driving through it was quite breathtaking.

 I love this shot of Libbie. Obviously San Diego goes well with her.

 Wyatt loved it there too, though I don't think he looked at the views for more than a minute. He was very excited about all of the sticks and pine cones and spent at least 20 minutes under this bush in his little hideout.

  A few of the Eskelsens hanging out.

 These two were trying to identify some animals on the rocks below. I don't know if they ever figure them out.

 Finn and Ella were such good sports the whole trip and riding in the windy stroller on the walk to the light house was no exception. They even waited outside while everyone climbed the step to the top.

An attempt at a group shot, pretty hard to get everyone to look at the camera when they are quite distracted by the outdoors.