Valentine's Day

On Valentine's Day morning, Helaina was up early from excitement (anything and everything excites this child during the month of February).  Jim left for work and Helaina was eating breakfast.  About 15 minutes after he left, the doorbell rings.  I'm thinking to myself "What the heck?" and go peak out the living room window to see who's ringing the doorbell this early.  I see Jim's car in the driveway.  "Delivery".  He has 2 vases full of flowers - one for me and one for Helaina.  Every year I tell him not to get flowers on Valentine's Day because they are too expensive.  Never listens.  Helaina, of course, is thrilled.  Flowers are a favorite of hers.

Helaina, of course, is thrilled.  Flowers are a favorite, as well as balloons.  Happy sweet little child.

Home from school with her Valentine's Day hat on while checking out her oodles of cards and candy from her school party, which included ice cream sundaes.

The card she made for me in school.  "I love you. real love has gon in my hart."  Ahhhh.  She thought of that herself, little sweetie pie.  Real love is in my heart too.

But the Valentine kangaroo (?huh?) tells it all.  Fill in the blank:  I love you because ... "you feed me"!!!!!!  So very true.  Cracked us up completely. 

Heart shaped pink sprinkled cake.  Yum yum yum.  She actually gasped when she saw it.

Helaina had a good President's week off from school.  We did tons of stuff with her all week long.  One of her requests was bowling.  She'd get so excited if she got lots of pins down.

Nice way to end one of her games.  Strike in the 9th, split in the 10th which she unbelievably made by sliding a pin across the alley, then 8 pins to end up with a score over 100.  "Hey, my score is close to Daddy's score!"  Yuppers.

Jim and Helaina went to the boat show Sunday afternoon while I stayed home and worked on birthday stuff.  She had a blast climbing in and out of the boats.  She was super impressed with the boats that had sinks, beds and pottys in them.  Jim said she kept saying "Can we buy this boat?"

It's exhausting driving all those boats.

Not too bad if you've got thousands and thousands of dollars.

We hit the mall one day so Helaina could use her Disney Store gift card.  She also ended up with something small from Build A Bear, 2 new shirts and lunch at the mall.

These pics are from WonderWorks which is new at the mall as of last November (we went in January).  Helaina had been asking to go forever and we finally caved.  She had a blast and wants to go again, but with a $63 admission price for the 3 of us, it's only an occasional adventure. 

This is what she's sitting in above.  She saw it from across the room and went running screaming "Can I go, please, please, pleeeeeeez!"  We watched the thing spin round and round, upside down, twist sideways and said "I don't know".   But obviously since she's sitting in it in the picture, we gave in.  They strapped her in around the waist, ankles and wrists then pulled the safety bar over her head.  The guy gives it a good starting spin with his hand then hits the button and it goes round and round like crazy.  Our insane daughter is laughing like a maniac the entire time.  Daredevil to say the least.

They do have lots of cool exhibits and hands-on things for the kiddos, and adults too.

The bed of nails, and I mean real nails, not fake ones.

Helaina begged to go in this roller coaster simulator.  You climb into a small pod-like thing, buckle yourself in, pull the bar down over your head, the operator shows you the red button in between the two seats and says "If you want the ride to stop at any time, hit the red button.", then he closes the lid on the thing.  You're sitting completely enclosed, in the dark, with a movie screen in front of you playing the roller coaster ride while the pod tilts sideways, back and forth to mimic a real coaster ride.  I like coasters but being enclosed is a whole different ball game.  It was fun at first but by the end of the long ride we were both ready to hit the button, but we stuck it out. 

Spelled her name out on the giant Light Bright.  Fun place, WonderWorks.  For an extra fee you can strap on a harness, tether yourself to an overhead pulley system and go through their rope course.  Helaina's also anxious to do that but that's something she's got to be a little taller to enjoy and she also will need her brother to go with her because Jim and I aren't tackling that thing any time soon.