A Lively "Love Day" (Feb. 14)

Thursday, February 14, 2008

This was one of those whirlwind kind of days, where it seemed as though I never slowed down even enough to breathe.  It was lots of fun, though, and I think the boys and I will all sleep well tonight!

The mom's group/playgroup that I organize had a big "Love-Bug Ball" Valentine's Day party this morning, so I started off the day by getting up early in order to finish putting together the food for the party, get the boys ready, and load the van with everything that we might possibly need at the event.  Another organizer and I arrived at the party location at 9:30 to get everything set up.  We were still working on putting out food, drinks, games, crafts, toys, and decorations when our group members started arriving half an hour later.  Thankfully, Tyler was a big help and "babysat" his brothers and my friend's little son while we worked, or it may never have been finished!  I was exhausted before the party even started!  

Moms and children together, we had a total of 45 people attending the party, and the vast majority of the children were under 3, so it could have been a real nightmare, but it actually went very smoothly.  No major messes, no fights, a minimum amount of crying, and lots of fun.  My boys each spent time at the craft table and made foam picture frames to give to Daddy for Valentines Day, played ball, built with blocks, ate (and ate, and ate, and ate) and just had a good time in general.  Of course, I took lots of pictures, too.  Here are some of my favorites...

Ryan was very anxious for his friends to start arriving - 

As we were cleaning up, my climbing fanatic of a baby figured out that he could make it up into the folding chairs.  He was quite proud of himself.

 Immediately after finishing the clean up, we piled back into the van for the trip across town to Tyler's Roots & Shoots meeting.  We were actually a few minutes late, because of road work and traffic tie ups.  The meeting was fantastic.  The kids made recycled paper, listened to The Lorax by Dr. Seuss, learned about identifying birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count, counted up the number of pop tabs they've collected for the Ronald McDonald house, made posters promoting www.freerice.com and totaled up the number of grains of rice they've collectively earned on that site.  They also discussed future projects that they'd like to do, including participating in the Kansas City Earth Walk.   

Ryan and James enjoyed the meeting, too.  Along with another little friend, they played with trucks from our diaper bag, read books, drew pictures, and watched the big kids make the paper. 

After the meeting, we hurried back home to exchange valentines with the daycare friends.  Ryan loved handing out his dinosaur valentines, and ended up handing out James' for him, too. 

After overseeing the valentine exchange and the consumption of way too many sweets, I spent an extended period of time unloading the van one more time, putting away the toys we took to share, and packing away all of the extra craft supplies and paper goods from the party. 

I finally stopped to relax at about 6:30, when Daddy and I left the boys with Grandma while we went out to dinner at BD's Mongolian Barbecue.  We had to wait quite a while to get seated, but it was well worth it for the evening out alone and the yummy dinner!

One more picture, and then I'll quit, I promise.  This one wasn't actually taken today, but I just got a chance to scan it and share it.  It's from James' one year portrait session, which we did about three weeks ago.  I just love it!

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