Happy Valentine's Day!

I have to admit, I am a Scrooge for Valentine's Day. I always thought of it as a day to make people spend exorbitant amounts of money on the person they love, all for the sake of being able to proclaim to the world how much they love that other individual. Ok... yes, hate me now, I know! But at least I save Martin TONS of money on roses and dinners over the years! :) My idea of spending "Valentine's Day" was to do a nice dinner together, something VERY low-key, as if you know me very well, I HATE crowds. So we always did something quiet and TOGETHER at home. :)

Now with kids, we are carrying on the tradition of homemade, love goodness. I still wanted to make it a holiday for them and let them know that it was special, but I just couldn't afford to take them anywhere!

Here is a quick pictorial of our low key family hearts day!

Banana pancakes in a heart shape, with strawberries for Koa, Daddy and Malia to share


Yum!




Daddy sharing with Malia


My 3 Loves



Next up- Valentine sugar cookies!


...Which Koa clearly could not wait for!



All finished!


Such a happy boy with his cookies :)

Valentine's Pictures Part 2

Here are the rest of the pictures from the Picture People photo session. :)

Brother & Sister Attempts






Brother & Sister Attempt #2, but only one picture took!


Kekoa

My surfer boy




Malia

My little ham!




And I think that this may just be one of my favorites of her!

Pictures are IMPOSSIBLE!

Today, while Janet was staying over we had a really "bright" idea. We decided to have the kids' photos taken as an early Valentine's gift for Martin. Plus, we also had a coupon for The Picture People that we just couldn't pass it up. :)

So we made the first appointment that they had available and drove ourselves down to the mall to have a mall photo taken.

Evidence why I will be eternally grateful for having a photographer in the family...

Janet and I had the WORST time trying to get a picture of the two kids together. For one thing, BOTH kids had runny noses. So we were constantly cleaning up yucks and stuff from their faces in between flashes. Poor Malia had her nose rubbed so raw that it started to bleed. Secondly, Koa just would not sit with his sister. A picture of himself, sure! But with Malia, no way!! And Malia just lost it at one point and decided that all these people cheering for her not was not only confusing and overwhelming, but much too scary because she became inconsolable.

I think that we need to stick with our Uncle Tien as a photographer. :)