It’s been a great week! (Natalie posted about skiing here, and Amy posted about this week here.)

Our snow globes turned murky, so I washed out the jars and repurposed them ...again.

Swimming Lessons

The four oldest kids took four days of brush-up swim lessons this week. It’s amazing how quickly they regained their skills and how much they improved in four days. We’ll hold off on any more lessons until summer is closer so they can practice and apply what they’re learning. They all loved it, though. Tyler was entranced, but I’m not ready for him to be in the water quite yet.

Groundhog Day

Is this not the weirdest, scariest meatloaf you’ve ever seen?! My attempt at a groundhog face turned out a lot sillier/more comical than I had planned. I was rushing in the last few minutes of sunlight to snap a picture, so had to go with it. (This was the idea.) The kids loved it, though, and I will take any excuse to make this meatloaf again! It is to-die-for!

I’ve never done anything for Groundhog Day, but thought it would be fun. I managed to do 2 out of the 4 things I was hoping for. I didn’t get to make these cute groundhog pancakes, but whipping up a batch of muffins with these awesome groundhog toothpicks was very do-able! The kids were pretty excited to see and eat these after swimming.

I couldn’t escape the purchase of one new book for the holiday: Groundhog Day! by Gail Gibbons. It’s a good one.

Jump Rope Queen

Amy has been doing a lot of this lately. (So cool!!) We had a family discussion at the beginning of the week about which sports the kids wanted to be involved in. Amy decided on her own that she wanted jumprope to be her sport. I am totally happy with that, and have had fun coaching her technique a bit. (After all, I was an international champion in 4th grade... okay second place, but I was competing in the 5th grade division.)

I’m amazed at how far just a few tips go in improving her skill. Her goal was 100 jumps in a row without misses and she just barely made her goal! I love hearing that rope tap, tap, tap throughout the day. I hope she keeps it up ‘cause it is so good for you! I also can’t wait until I can show her a few tricks when I’m back in the saddle again.

Two Peas in a Pod

Ski Club!

This is what I used to do. I’d like to get back into that kind of shape again! (You can still do all this, right, Nance?)

BYU Volleyball

My cousin, Andrew Heap (#4), is on the BYU Men’s volleyball team. What a great excuse to go to their games! BYU vs. Stanford was guaranteed to be an action-packed game, though the kids provided plenty of action in our own section.

The scriptures on love were a hit this week. We read them at breakfast time. The kids told me after school how the scripture helped them handle sticky situations at school - like arguing with a friend or dealing with someone who is always throwing a tantrum, etc. The challenges at the end are good for me as well! Have you tried the “love scriptures” and had success? Please share!

I asked Jon to take pictures and video of the girls at ski club. I was stoked when he texted me this picture! (That’s a GoPro video camera strapped to Jon.)

(We put the hearts on this plate after reading them.)

I had fun with a few new Valentine recipes this week: peanut butter kisses, sweetheart sweet potatoes, and heart-shaped rolls. We ate the sweet potatoes and rolls with “Dirty Rice.” Yum!!!

Amy made these cute heart garlands from an idea we saw on Pinterest.

Jon said it was so cool to watch the girls ski and to ski with them. I’m so happy this worked out!

So here they are -- their third time skiing! 40 seconds into it, you can watch Amy take out a (decorative) fence. Listen carefully for the girl on the ski lift yelling out “You ruined it!”

Here’s Andrew servin’ it up. We stayed the first 3 games, but it was pretty late for the kids by then. Too bad BYU lost!

Spring Cleaning

We spent several hours on Saturday cleaning the inside and outside of our house. The weather was amazing! And hey, if the weather is going to act like it’s Spring, then so are we!

It was so cool to watch the kids jumping on the tramp with snow all around and the sun shining. I love Saturdays!

Keepin’ It Real

P.S. I just found out that I was spotlighted on the Power of Moms website. (I was approached by them a while back, but was never notified that they published anything.) HERE is the article. (I don’t love it, but tried my best.)