A Year of Dates

I put on Facebook last week that I was giving Louis a year of dates for Valentine's Day.  I'm putting together a binder with a date all planned and paid for for each month of the year.  I was asking for suggestions for a couple months I couldn't think of something for.  I had a lot of comments!  I also had several people ask me what dates I had planned for each month.  I was going to put it on Facebook, but that would make for a long status!  So I'm going to put it on here.  Louis never sees the blog, I'm actually pretty sure he doesn't even know the web address.

February-

Dancing and dessert.  It is an at home date, which is one of our favorite kinds! We'll get dressed up, and dance by candlelight.  Then we'll sit down and share a dessert of his choice.

March-

Cuddle Night.  I saw this idea on Pinterest for a cuddle kit.  I thought it was so cute and Louis loves to cuddle so I knew he would love it!  For the cuddle kit I put together a movie, some chocolates, and a homemade over-sized fluffy blanket.

April-

We will go on a walk to a bakery close by and each pick a treat.  Then we'll walk to the park to eat them and talk.  This is one we'll probably bring the kids along to because we also like family dates!

May-

Paper airplanes.  For this one we'll go to the library and check out a book on how to make paper airplanes.  Then head somewhere and have a little paper airplane competition.

June-

Pizza at the park.  This is one that Louis recently told me was a go to date for him and his cousin Jon to take girls on.  So I thought it would be fun to go on with him!  We will go buy a pizza and then go to the park and eat it and play!  This is also one we could easily bring the kids to!

July-

A night under the stars.  We did this one randomly last year and it was fun and romantic.  We will go outside just before sunset and lay on a blanket talking and waiting until the stars come out.

August-

Ducks and horseshoes.  We will go to Willow Park and play some horseshoes then feed the ducks.  This is another one that we could take the kids to.  

September-

Arcade night.  We've only been to an arcade together once.  It was lots of fun so I thought we'd do it again.  We'll have $10 to buy tokens and see how many tickets we can get. 

October-

Copycat date.  There are lots of copycat recipes out there for just about any restaurant on Pinterest.  For this date we'll pick a recipe and make it together.

November-

20 questions.  We've done something like this before and I've enjoyed it.  I came up with a questionnaire of 20 questions about ourselves.  We'll make cookies and while they're cooking we'll fill them out then share our answers.  

December-

This was one of the months I asked suggestions for.  Just about everyone said go to temple square.  If we're still in Utah we'll do that (we've only gone once during Christmas since we've been married!) and if we are not we're going to play in the snow and have hot chocolate.

January-

D.I. date.  We will each get $10 and we have to go around the D.I. to get things for us to do on our date.  A puzzle, a cookie sheet, a movie, something for each other to wear, etc.

I also included a page at the end with bonus dates.  I came up with some after I had finished and wanted to include them!

Bonus Dates

• Game night.  We each pick a game and play it.
• Frisbee golf.  There is a frisbee golf course in Providence that we could go try.
• Picnic.  Pack a picnic lunch and either eat it in our lawn or at the park.
• Window Shopping.  We each get $1000 pretend money and we go to some stores and "spend it" on each other.
• Restaurant night.  We have a couple restaurant.com vouchers we haven't used so we'll just enjoy a night where I don't have to cook dinner!
• Avery date.  For Avery's 3rd birthday we started a tradition where Louis takes her out on a date of her choice for her birthday.  (Mary will get one too when she turns 3) So for this date we'll copy their date!  Bowling, arcade basketball, and ice cream!

Those are the dates I came up with!  I think Louis is really going to enjoy it!  I can't wait to see which date he likes best and how our year of dates go!

Lately

It hasn't been a very eventful year so far.  Louis started school about two weeks ago and we've started up our little preschool again too.  Avery and Mary have both liked it.  Mary doesn't get to join us for much of it, but she does like coloring, play dough, reading books, etc.  I got a laminator for Christmas so I've had fun making work sheets and downloading a few, mostly from education.com.  I laminate the worksheets then Avery does them with dry-erase markers and then we wipe them clean and do it again!
We are doing a different letter each week and doing different activities for each letter.  I am proud to say that Mary knows the letters A and B and the sounds they make.  We just started C today so she doesn't know that one yet.  We'll see how many she can continue to remember.  Avery is doing really really well with writing her letters and learning how to spell more words.
Last week Avery and I tried to make play dough.  I found a recipe on Pinterest that was just conditioner and corn flour.  It also said you could use cornstarch so I used that.  It did not work out.  At all.  It was fun to play with though!  It made me want to make goop again, we had fun with that over the Summer.  I'm wondering if it would have been better if I had used corn flour instead of the cornstarch.  We ended up going out to buy play dough and had fun with that.  It was Mary's first time playing with it.  Besides trying to eat it and crying when I wouldn't let her, she had fun!
I like having a little more structure in our day, and I love teaching my kids new things.  They both pick up on things rather quickly.  I'm hoping to continue with preschool and not slack off like I did in the Fall.  I have a plan for the year, so hopefully I'll keep up with it!
I plan on sharing the worksheets that I have created, but for today enjoy some pictures of my kiddos!

Christmas 2013

For the first time in the 5 Christmases Louis and I have been married we had our Christmas on actual Christmas morning!  I guess that is a good thing about your parents being on a mission.  Only one family to visit on Christmas!
On Christmas Eve Louis read the girls the Christmas story and watched a short video.  After dinner the girls took a quick baths so they could open their Christmas Eve jammies!  It is a tradition I really love!

We also opened a new Christmas movie!  This year we got Arthur Christmas.  We watched that and ate popcorn.  Then it was off to bed!

On Christmas morning Louis and I got breakfast ready then woke up the kids.  Yes we had to wake them up, they are sleepy heads.  Before we ate we opened presents!  Mary was not happy about that at first.  She just wanted to eat!  She did enjoy her presents though.  It was so fun having a three year old this Christmas!  Avery was so excited the entire morning.  She loved all of her presents that Santa left her in her stocking.  She also enjoyed handing out all of the presents this year.  

Mary's first present.  You can see her unhappiness.  She just wanted food!

Avery was excited to get her new scripture case and her very own Book of Mormon

Giving her new Lion nosies 

Then, to Mary's delight, we ate breakfast!  We had fun with breakfast this year. 

We played with our new toys then headed down to Ogden to spend the rest of the day with the Brandleys.  It was a great day filled with happiness, fun, friends, and laughter.  Merry Christmas and a happy new year!

Miss Mary

I haven't done an update on Mary since she turned 1, so I want to do one.  She is a very sweet girl.  Well, until you try to take her food.  She is still our bottomless pit!  Today in church she had a little cup of food and Avery tried to take a piece and Mary screamed at her!
Mary talks so much!  If I ask her to say any word she will do her best to copy it!  She seriously learns a few new words everyday.  I have many favorites.  Pease (please), dant do (thank you), eat (of course), hep (help), and bye bye.  She talks so much more than Avery did.  She even said her first prayer this last week.  She did well, except for not wanting to sit there for the prayer!
Along with talking so much, she also knows so many animal sounds!  I can't even name them all.  Her newest ones are hippo and giraffe.  And in case you didn't know, this is what a hippo says:

She is now walking and running, she has to keep up with her sister!  She still loves to climb.  Her new hang out spot is the top of the couch.

Here are a few of Mary's favorite things:  

Reading!  She will bring you the same book over and over and over again!  Her favorite books are the baby bright books.  She also loves any book with animals.

Putting pretties on.  Around here pretties are necklaces and bracelets.  This has been her thing lately!  She loves getting their little jewelry box out and putting every single necklace on.  She loves her pretties!

Her daddy!  She is such a daddy's girl!  Which I am grateful for because Avery was a mama's girl.  Mary loves Louis so much!  Her whole face lights up when he walks through the door or when I just say his name.  I love seeing the two of them together.

We love our Mary so very much!  She is sweet and loving.  

P.S.  Her smiles are the best!  

Don We Now Our Worst Apparel

Last weekend we had our semi-annual Brandley sibling supper!  It was Megan and Phillip's turn to host and they decided to do an ugly sweater party.  These are becoming quite popular, but it was the first one we've gone to.  It was a lot of fun, Megan and Phillip did a wonderful job!  That day there was a pretty bad snow storm so people had a fun time getting there!  Once we were all there though we started dinner.  Megan and Phill made two delicious soups and there was also salad, fruit, and desserts.  After dinner we played some fun games!

For the first game we had to hold a candy cane in our mouth and hook other candy canes onto it and transfer that candy cane to a bowl.  Whoever could do the most in one minute won.  Louis and Phillip made it to the finals and Phillip won!

For the second game we had five Christmas cards standing up on the table and we had one minute to blow them to the edge of the table so they were dangling off.  I know that sounds confusing.  Hopefully the pictures can help explain what we had to do.  Jonathan won this game.

After the games we took some pictures together!

Jonathan's sweater won ugliest

May I explain the awesomeness of Kaileb's sweater?  You see the gingerbread man?  Well Kaileb tied strings to it's legs and connected that string up to his hands.  So when he raised his arms the gingerbread man did the splits!!!  Isn't that awesome!  He won most creative.

We had a great time and really love getting together with Louis' siblings!
Fa-la-la-la-la-la-la-la-blah!