Birthdays + Valentines

A couple of weekends ago we were able to celebrate Elise's birthday with her at her Parisian-themed party. Her cake was absolutely gorgeous and tasted wonderful too. Happy 12th, Elise! We love you.

Dana made some friends at the party. :-)

Clara and Prairie Joy always have so much fun together.

On Sunday, Grandpa and Grandma Froemming came up so we could celebrate Grandma's birthday. Happy birthday, Grandma Holly!

This squirrel hopped up on our deck to get some sun one afternoon.

Brynn loves to go outside and swing while listening to music. It had really been too cold for her to be out, but one night last week she said she couldn't stand not being able to go out anymore and braved the cold for a bit. When she came in her eyelashes were all frosty!

We got ourselves an air fryer and have been frying almost everything we can think of in it. Dana suggested we have an air fryer fest last Friday. I hopped onto my Pinterest account to look up some air fryer recipes that I had pinned to see what we wanted to try out next. He had a different plan, though, which was to load up on all the frozen foods he could find at Sam's and throw them into the air fryer. So, he and the girls ate cheese curds, tots, chicken bites, pizza rolls, etc. and I tried salmon. We had really good luck with fajitas and some other things, but the salmon was just ok. I think I cooked it too long. It's really been a trial and error to get some of the timing down.

Our friends who Dana knows from work were getting rid of a bunch of stamps and Kayley thought of the girls.

Last weekend Brynn spent a couple of nights at Grandpa and Grandma Dietz's cabin where my cousin and her granddaughter who is a year younger than Brynn were visiting. Tammy (my cousin) brought a bunch of fun things for the girls....on of which was this pair of tiny hands. 😂

Briann and Brynn FaceTimed us...again, with the tiny hands.

While Brynn was at the lake, Clara decorated/frosted a cookie kit that I had bought at Jen's Bakery.

Then Chef Boyardee here made a heart-shaped pizza for Dad for valentines.

More air fryer action. I had wanted to try to make fried bread in there too. So, we had a movie night with Clara and I thought I'd give it a whirl. It didn't get as browned and crispy as the regular method, but I think I could have left them in there a bit longer.

For the movie, our snack smorgasboard included the fried bread, popcorn, of course, and Clara also wanted to have a veggie tray. 

The girls had Monday and Tuesday off of school this week, so I took Monday off of work and worked from home on Tuesday.

Clara was especially busy with this boat she made for her stuffed pets.

Since Brynn didn't get home until the day after Valentines, we waited until Monday to give the girls their valentines. Clara's class wasn't able to exchange this year, but they loved all the cards, money, candy and more they received from loved ones. Thank you, everyone!

Daddy gave Clara and Brynn sweet cards and candies/chocolates.

I had found this lady on Facebook Marketplace selling these stuffed candy hearts that you crack open. It looked like so much fun.

Clara did a good job of keeping herself busy on Tuesday while I was working. She had made a whole list of things to do and I think she did check off most everything.

Brynn back out in the swing. 💗

Mickey update! He really is a cute little bugger. His fur is so soft. He sleeps about 23.75 hours out of the day so we actually don't see too much of him and he's still pretty shy. We might need to rouse him every so often so we can give him some pets and try to tame him down some more.

This one gives me such a chuckle. He has really long teeth...that really hurt when he bites you!

Brynn frosted the rest of the cookies that we had saved for her once she got back home from the lake. They turned out so cute.