Steve and Jenny Valentine

WEEK 50 12/10/13 - Coffee and a big cinnamon roll, Jenny very much enjoyed these by herself while some sweet friends took Karis and Isaac to Disney world for the day.  Yea it would have been fun to be with them, but it was a blast to have some alone time as well!  After some much needed quiet time, Jenny proceeded to shampooing the carpet. Yea that wasn't so relaxing, but we have clean carpets now and it was much easier to do without little tots under foot. 12/11/13 - Karis is a great helper and it was so fun to make our first sugar cookies of the Christmas season together.  She likes to help with everything and so it was especially enjoyable to teach her how to do something new.  We've come a long way from a couple years ago when she screamed her head off when we tried to get her to push the cookie cutter into the dough ;) 12/12/13 - Daddy left this day to go out of town for a few days and the kids are especially snuggly with him before and after he re...

11/26/13 -Isaac was one tired boy after our first flight in our trip to Dallas for Thanksgiving 11/27/13 - Visiting with Steve's Aunt Kathleen, Uncle Bill and cousin Ana while in Dallas 11/28/13 - Thanksgiving day with some of Steve's family 11/29/13 - Jenny and the kiddos at the Fort Worth Science museum...kids especially enjoyed the curious George exhibit 11/30/13 - Isaac feeding a cow at the Velhuizen Dairy farm. We had a blast touring their cheese shop and visiting with Steve's boss' family 12/1/13 - Had time to visit with several friends during our time in Dallas...great to catch up with the Dallalio family! 12/2/13 -  Our friend Joanna with Jenny and all the kiddos! WEEK 49: 12/3/13 - All loaded up and ready to head back to Orlando 12/4/13 - Our "Thankful Tree" that we worked on throughout the month of November. 12/5/13 - "Christmas" with Rob, Lauren and all the kiddos! 12/6/13 - Karis and that...

10/29/13 - Fun time on the playground at daddy's work. I think this is the first time I've seen her do this monkey swinging action! 10/30/13 - Two things: Steve hates glitter, Karis LOVES glitter. 10/31/13 - Steve caught Isaac making this silly face on camera...too funny! 11/1/13 - Evening in Celebration with the Heinsch family, Karis enjoying her first hot cocoa by the lake 11/2/13 - Celebrating Steve's 30th - a few weeks past his actual birthday, but it was the first weekend he was in town and not traveling for work in a while! Steve hates attention on him and didn't want a party...Jenny told him since it was his 30th that we had to do something.  So we landed on a small gathering with close friends.  He had a blast hanging out in the "man cave" at a local restaurant with just a few of his closest guy friends, eating dinner, chatting and watching Texas Tech football. 11/3/13 - If you live in Florida, one staple item you n...

As it turns out, our trip home from Minnesota last week ended with our little family of four riding First Class! You would think we do that all the time as we boarded when Karis sits down and says, "where's the TV?!" It was actually funny to me when Steve came back from the desk and said that we had all been bumped up to first class. See, he travels often for work and gets bumped up all the time so he was excited for me to enjoy riding first class. As enjoyable as that sounded, all I could think about was how would our children act and what would those around us think with our noisy ten month old and talkative two year old! Karis and Isaac both traveled well after settling in...Karis enjoyed her stickers and games while Isaac slept for most of the flight. I enjoyed the extra space and Steve laughed at me when I said, "I could get used to that!" Obviously this isn't possible with our budget but it was fun to enjoy some perks awarded Steve as a frequent fly...

Our visit to Minnesota is coming to an end...being here always makes me not like the cold weather {again} and so I will be glad to be home in Florida in just a few days! Karis has enjoyed playing in the snow, but hates putting on a jacket, shoes, hat, etc! And its been super funny to watch her walk outside holding her arms around herself saying, "brrr its cold!"  During our time here, we haven't been able to stay at any of our family's houses (too full already, so no room in their Inns!) However, we were blessed to stay in a home of one of my mom's friends while they were actually out of town for the holidays. We were grateful for lots of extra space and a warm house! These last two nights of our time here, we're staying in another hotel as the residents of that home are returning this afternoon.  I'm laying here on the hotel bed, while the kiddos nap in the hotel room...Karis has a fever and Isaac seems a little out of sorts...all ready to head h...

Steve and I joked a few weeks back about a situation that came up about our trip to Minnesota for the Christmas holidays because the place we were to stay was no longer available and so we joked about how there was "no room in the Inn"!  Lodging got figured out and we were looking forward to spending Christmas with my side of the family.  And then there was today, a day I never even anticipated.  We arrived at the Orlando airport bright and early and boarded our plane with a very excited two year old and goofy grinned little ten month old.  Karis hasn't been on a plane in a while and she has been so excited to get on an airplane to go see "snowflake".  {Yea, we keep trying to tell her it's just called "snow" or "snowflakes"}  The flight was great, Karis was excited and very entertained by the goody bag I had prepared with all sorts of "busy activities" a two year old could ever want and Isaac just slept.  We got to Chicago, ...

Our mother's day was pretty low key...mostly because I was out of town the days prior and flew back to Orlando returning the evening of mother's day.  Steve had a meal planned to cook, but had to adjust plans since my flight was delayed and we were pushing up against Karis' time to eat!  So he took me out to eat at Longhorn steakhouse.  I think the best part of my day was Isaac and I coming home and getting to spend the evening with Karis and Steve!  It was fun to be away, but I was glad to be home.  Steve and Karis had spent time planting flowers with cousins, Char and Eloise, along with Uncle Rob on the Saturday before mother's day to give to the mommy's in their lives.  It was fun to hear the stories Steve told about Karis "helping" plant.  Apparently she liked playing in the dirt more than anything!  I didn't get a picture of Karis with my new plants until a couple days later, which was perfect because there were several really pretty blo...