Pictures of our recent happenings...

I haven't taken any pictures off of our camera in about a month, so here are some of them from the past few weeks. I figured this would be the quickest and easiest way to explain what we've been up to lately.

We spent a few days at Grandpa and Grandma Vettrus' house after we celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. Miriam loved playing with the "stick-ahs" (stickers) on the refrigerator.

Here she is sporting her dress-up tutu from Great-Grandma Vonda!

Miriam is practicing using a spoon all by herself! She still has quite a few spills, but really loves the independence of it. Sometimes she won't eat something until I let her do it on her own.

One of her favorite activities as of late is coloring. I'm not sure if she enjoys actually holding the markers and crayons more than coloring itself, but either way... it's a source of fun for her. She's also starting to learn some of her colors. She almost always knows "blue" and will often say when something is "green," "brown," or "yellow."

Here she is at the piano. Of course I shouldn't be letting her stand on the chair, but I just love when she starts turning the pages of the hymnal and then sits down to "play" one of them. She sure is watching what her Papa and Mama do!

Just making a silly face :)

Hopefully there won't be quite as much time in between my next posts... and when I take pictures off the camera. We have been busy!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I really enjoy Valentine's Day... I always have, even before I could share it with my wonderful husband. There was just always something lovely about receiving cards and candy in a hand decorated bag in elementary school. That later transformed to writing on cards to college friends and eagerly awaiting a mailbox full of Valentine's from them as well. And although I didn't get any little cards with candy this year, I did have a great Valentine's Day. Well, actually, my Valentine's Day was on Wednesday of this week. Let me explain: Matt has to work Saturday nights, so I kind of assumed I wouldn't be doing much to celebrate this year. We've had a "tradition" for the past two years to get pizza on Valentine's Day (which actually was an accident that turned into a tradition... a story for another day). Therefore, I figured we'd just share a pizza together after Matt got home from work Saturday night. But... my beloved husband was far more creative than that this year :) On Wednesday, I had two students to tutor and was gone for the afternoon. When I pulled home into our driveway, I noticed Matt's parents' car there. I assumed they had just stopped by for a few minutes on their way to run errands or something. However, when I walked in the door... there Matt was waiting for me and asked if I was ready to go. I was extremely shocked and not sure what to think at first... it took me a few minutes to realize what was going on. I stepped in a little farther and saw flowers and a card on the counter (which he went out to get with Miriam while I was gone) and Matt's parents playing with Miriam. Matt had arranged for them to come and watch her while we went out for dinner. (And, as a side note, Miriam learned the word "date" that night!). It was wonderful. We went to the Olive Garden because that was our first Valentine's date a few years ago before we were even engaged. It didn't quite follow our pizza tradition... so maybe we'll just have to stick with Italian from now on.

So, all in all, I enjoyed a lovely early Valentine's Day with the one I want to spend them with for the rest of my life. Thank you, honey!