Valentine's Day has never been an important holiday in my book, but the combination of not physically feeling well, plus the constant onslaught of snow, ice, and inversion left me craving something to celebrate.  I'm trying to come up with simple, fun ways to make holidays more fun for the kids.  We started our Valentine's Day with a special breakfast of heart-shaped cinnamon rolls, strawberries, and pink milk.  I was excited to get up and get going that day, but morning sickness made it a bit more difficult...shape one cinnamon roll, lay on the floor for a few minutes, shape one more, get a drink and lay on the floor.  What should have taken me five minutes took almost 30!   I loved the pretty $4 bouquet of flowers I found at Walmart, and mylar balloons are seriously the gift that keeps on giving.  My kids play with them for weeks!  Sadly, one flew out the door yesterday, and to my pet-less children, it was heartbreaking.











Anthony and I thought it would be best to go low-key this year.  He and I have always watched The Simpsons together (sorry, Mom), and in one episode, Lisa gets a sappy, but memorable valentine.  I recreated the card for Anthony, and it was a hit!







I got him a Starbucks coffee, and he bought me some Ben and Jerry's, Reese's, and fixed my t.v. remote.  Those things were honestly nicer to receive than the expensive roses he bought a couple of years ago.


I finally figured out how to make a heart in Alaina's hair, so of course she sported those for the day!




We had to bust out the heart-glasses for the annual pictures.













Too cool for school.







After much begging, pleading, and bargaining, I managed this shot to publicly announce our pregnancy.  There were many "her hair is touching me!" and "Connor's touching me!" comments in the process.  *sigh*




To make our day even more special, we got a surprise visit from Papa!  Alaina loved having him to herself for an hour while Connor was at martial arts.  He made her day by having a proper tea party with her.










We ended our day with heart-shaped pizza and Valentine's floats.  It's safe to say the kids were on a sugar high from morning until night, and the hangover lasted THREE days.  That might be a record!




In other news, Connor celebrated his 100th day of kindergarten.




The mountains and the sun are back!  Hallelujah!




The kids were insistent on having a sleepover one night.  After much cajoling, Anthony gave in.   Alaina had to bring all of her earthly possessions to bed.  I checked on them when I got home from work that night, and they both looked so uncomfortable!  I was grateful that the flash woke them up, and Alaina said she was ready to sleep in her own bed.  Maybe now their sleepover bug will be satisfied!  Not to say that it satisfied the "I want to sleep with the lower half of my body in a cardboard box" bug OR the "I want to sleep in my sled" bug.  Imagine my surprise when I came home to those!




I had my 12-week appointment today.  Normally, they just check the heartbeat at this one, but since I'm technically 11 weeks and 6 days and it's hard to find the heartbeat on the doppler, I got a bonus ultrasound! I'm so grateful for that, because I've been feeling gross physically and mentally, and not having the easiest time connecting with the little one.  The baby is growing wonderfully and was very active during the ultrasound, so much so that it surprised my doctor.  It was doing somersaults and using its little legs to springboard into backflips.  I had started to feel little fish-like movements at 11 weeks, and I told my doctor that I thought it was too early for that.  She said that experienced, slender moms often begin to feel things right about now, so it's been fun to know that the squirming in there (right now, even!) is really a baby!  We had been talking through the whole thing, until baby turned and showed us the goods.  We both paused, and I said, "That really looks like a ......., doesn't it?"  She laughed and said that she didn't want to say anything since Anthony wasn't there, but she agreed 100% with me.  She did say that she's been very wrong at 12 weeks before, and I want to be sure before announcing it!  I'm pretty confident in what I saw, and I've spied it correctly with both kids, so we'll see! If you want to ruin the surprise for yourself, there's a picture in my Flickr account of the money shot that's open for interpretation!  Otherwise, stay tuned for a cuter photo announcement!  We find out on March 20!


Here's little baby's cute profile.  It was playing with it's chin a lot, so I'm thinking that second protrusion under its nose is its hand.  Otherwise, those are some frighteningly large lips!




A harder to discern, front-on full body shot.  It's so much easier to get excited now!  Hooray, baby!