Be Mine

When you've got two little kids, Valentine's Day takes on an entirely different meaning.  Dinner out at a fancy place?  Oh, hells no.  Baby sitters cost too much and are impossible to find on Valentine's Day.  Sleep in?  Breakfast in bed?  Nope.  Nope.  Mostly our day revolved around the kids.  And the balloons and cards and candy they received and adored.  But they found some cute ways to make us feel loved, as well, so it all worked out fine.

Erin made me a bracelet and a necklace at school on Thursday.

John thought about spending the morning at the shooting range, but the temperature this morning was, like, 6 degrees.  So he didn't go do THAT.  We went to a free admission day at the DE Museum of Natural History, instead.  Erin was delighted because "I've never been there afore!"  Dex was excited about their new display on asteroids and comets.  And John came with us, as it was warmer than shooting guns.  It was a good morning.

Both kids enthralled by the Asteroid Finder Simulator

No idea what this is.  I think Erin was making a new solar system.

Dung Beetle grub, anyone?

Erin thought it was very very cool that we got to see some dinosaur bones.

More simulator

Props to Dex, the only one of the family brave enough to pet a snake.  I was totally proud of myself for getting close enough to take a picture without losing my mind.

We capped it off with lunch at Five Guys (romantic VD meal), some basketball shoe shopping at Dick's (the kids enjoyed running around the shoe department on their pretend "track."  I am sure everyone shopping for shoes was delighted.  Know what?  Bite me.  Don't put a TRACK in your shoe department if you don't want kids to run on it.), and a late nap by Ms. Cranky McGrumpypants.  And then Dex and I woke her up, so she would actually go to sleep tonight.  And THEN we tried to take Valentine's pictures.  So you can imagine how well that went.

Dexter is hugging me too tight!

Trying desperately not to smile...

Dexter, to his enormous credit, was a champ for pictures.  Which was a minor miracle, because it was a HUGE struggle to get him to even wear his Valentines shirt this morning.  Whereas Erin would happily wear a dress with pink hearts on it every day of the year.  But she wasn't having it for pictures.  We did the best we could.  Daddy even tried flying cars and dinosaurs and horses over my head to get a giggle.  Every.  Single.  Thing.  Was met with "But that's MINE!  You can't play with it!" from Ms. CrankyPants.  She's a fun one, that child.

Last week I made John watch a video of a T-Rex riding a horse.  You kind of must Google it.

And those are our Funny Valentines.