Recap of our Valentine's week

We kept fairly busy this Valentine's week-besides the usual day to day school and house stuff, we had one very fun and highly anticipated field trip to the American Girl store!  Yes, my 7 year old was in heaven.....just look at all that girl stuff!

Here's what she was here to look at specifically....all the accessories for her beloved Kit doll.  Too bad  one of her outfits cost more than my little girl has ever had in her bank account (and more than I would want to spend!)  But that's okay..........that's what birthdays and Christmas are for! :-)

After a fun browsing time-including my rambunctious 4 year old bouncing off the walls- and a little bit of walking around the mall, we decided to stop at the food court for a nice bite to eat. Yum!  Amazing how McDonalds can just make my kids' day!

 

Being Valentine's week, the next day, my 7 and 8 year old participated in a fun Valentine's exchange-they had fun and it was a whole lot better than the ones we had when I was in school!

 

 My littler kids convinced me that we needed to go with a definite Valentine's theme this week, as far as food goes.  So we put forth a little (okay...maybe a lot!) more effort into preparation.  Here were a couple of the school kids lunches this week...

 

Heart shaped cheese and crackers, chocolate (healthy!) muffins, strawberries, and trail mix

 

 

 

Heart shaped sandwiches, cranberries (they look like raisins here, I know), homemade heart shaped chips, and a valentines chocolate

 



For breakfast?  How about valentine shaped pancakes-we tinted half the batch pink...

 And heart shaped poptarts!  They were whole wheat and made with our homemade strawberry jam, so not full of added sugar and junk..

Okay...this one was not healthy at all- I made a heart shaped cinnapie for dessert. Junky, yes, but they enjoyed it!

To cap off our valentines day, we took a quick trip to....

 

Yes! The new Whole foods market in Katy!  One of my favorite stores, but they're not kidding when they say you can spend your whole paycheck there! We didn't though-just bought the few things we came for and admired everything else.
This weekend it's taking it easy...a couple of sick ones at our house that will hopefully be cleared up in the next couple days.  Time for some good DVD watching and snuggling time!

A blessed day of both work and play!

Monday started out with the norm-schoolwork, of course!  But today the kiddos had an extra incentive-they were dying to go play at the park, so the sooner we got things done, the sooner we'd be out the door.  Well, it worked and they got done in record time! We packed up our lunches to take with us and made a quick stop at the store to get a few groceries we needed before heading to play.  Amazingly, this is where the biggest blessing happened! While going into the store, my 7 year old noticed  a man sitting far down the wall, with a small backpack, wearing very worn clothes.  He didn't have a sign, but my daughter immediately assumed he was homeless.  I told her if he was still there when we got done with our shopping then we'd go talk to him and find out more about him.  Sure enough, when we came out, he was still there, sitting against the wall, reading a small pocket bible.  I think we startled him a bit when we approached him and asked him where he was headed, given the backpack. He answered our question-he was homeless-sleeping on the streets and under a local bridge since August, unable to secure a job.  We sat and chatted with him for about 15 minutes, trying to point him toward any resources we knew about. We were able to give him one of the food bags we keep in our car for this purpose and told him we would be praying for him.  He said he knew God had a purpose in allowing this to happen and that he is blessed in so many ways.  Wow...what an amazing attitude, one that most of us would not have, given the circumstances.  He is not the first homeless person we have talked to like this.  God has given us many such encounters over the years and though I used to think I was the one helping them, maybe I have that backward....they are helping me....and my kids to see that circumstances do not have to shape your relationship with the Lord-he is there in every circumstance, good or bad, and we can rejoice in that everyday!  I have a long way to go, but I'm thankful He is teaching me this...

 

After our fun encounter, we ventured out to a park nearby our house we had driven by several times,except when we got there, it wasnt actually a playground, but a big slide for the neighborhood pool. Bummer!  Welll, I wasn't giving up. With a subdivision this size, there was bound to be a playground somewhere!  Aftnr about 5 minutes of driving, we found one!  Small, but perfect for us-the kids had the whole thing to themselves!

 

Pretty big play area!

 

 

Fun swinging!

And of course, the slides..

 Don't know whatt my little guy's fascination is with climbing UP the slide...

 

Mom even got in on the fun, too, going down the slide several times.  Oh...to be little again!  I had a great time.  We came home worn out, but happy!  A fun and blessed day!!