Happy Valentine's Day!

I've been trying to teach Holly how to say Valentine's so that she can say Happy Valentine's Day, but that is quite a mouthful! She just shortens it to Happy Day, which she picked up at daycare and says a lot anyway.

Last weekend we were at my parents house and Holly spent some time doing a little math. Just kidding! But she did play with the abacus that Nana & Pop Pop have there. Since Pop Pop was a math teacher, I am sure that he hopes she will be a whiz like him and not mathematically challenged like her Mama!
Here is what Holly does to entertain herself when I am on the computer. She loves to draw, but her access to pencils & pens has been severely limited. I am super paranoid about her writing all over stuff and that I won't be able to get it off, so she only gets to use them under close supervision!

Last night we had a late night out! We went to watch our high school boys & girls basketball teams at the Bi-County tournament in Colfax. Holly loved to hear the bands play and did a lot of cheering for them to show her appreciation.

Some people wonder how it is that Holly can be so good sitting at all the basketball and volleyball games that we go to in a school year. I have several different strategies to help out: ALWAYS take food, let her sit with other people who are her favorites - like Jenna, Blake, or anyone else who wants to hold her, be prepared to let her make up her own toys and leave her alone with them, make sure to have binkie & bunny with us. Last home game that we went to, she spent about 30 minutes trying to tie her shoes. It was so amusing!

Last week, I bought Holly a couple of Valentine's Day presents. One of them was a Dora the Explorer book about Valentine's Day. The other was this cute balloon. She loves balloons. Here she was this afternoon playing with it.

After dinner, Holly and I made sugar cookies (ok, the break apart and put them on the pan kind!) for a special Valentine's Day treat. She wanted to eat the dough and not put them on the tray at all. A kid after my own heart! Here was her reaction when I told her she couldn't do that.

Yes, folks, she DOES cry and throw tantrums every so often! She was pretty mad that I wouldn't change my mind and the crying didn't work, so she thought she would throw her little heart toy in protest....right onto the pan of cookies.

Once we put the cookies in the oven, Holly was pretty much back to her happy self. She had to check on the progress several times in the 16 minutes it took them to cook.

Not bad looking for child assisted cookies! They tasted great, too! Van especially liked them because she said they are not as sweet as the thick, soft kind with sprinkles and icing and lots of preservatives that you get from the grocery store bakery.

Holly thought they were pretty tasty, too! She sat on the couch and had milk & cookies while she watched a little bull riding on television.

She really liked the peppermint sprinkles that we put on them. I was hesitant to do that because I wasn't sure if she would like them or not, but I guess peppermint is an acceptable flavor for her. Either that, or the yumminess of the cookies outweighed the peppermint flavor.

It was a low-key, uneventful Valentine's Day for us, but we had a good time. It reminded me of the Valentine's Day that my parents took us all to a hotel to spend the night when I was little. We swam in the pool, they put chocolates on my pillow before bedtime, and I left my stuffed bear there when we checked out. No worries! I have great parents and we went back, found housekeeping, and rescued my precious bear! Those are the kinds of memories that I hope I can make with Holly on special occasions like today.