Valentines Day

More smiles from our Maxwell. We can't get enough of them! He also has a pretty cute serious face. 

"The Archibald furrowed brow" 

Chris and I had big plans this Valentines. (insert sarcasm) We didn't feel like we could spend money on anything with taxes around the corner and more house remodels to save up for. So we decided to make a special dessert: Creme Brulee. We tried looking for a blow torch around town but couldn't find one. Luckily one of my good friends here had one we could borrow. Valentines happened to be on a Wednesday this year. By the time Chris got home from YM, and I got the kids in bed, we finally looked up a recipe and realized it needed a few hours to chill. It was too late and in typical Chris and Brittney fashion we didn't plan ahead well enough to make it happen.  So, in typical Chris and Brittney fashion we came up with another idea and made last minute Chocolate Baby Lava cakes. They were very good.  I was still a little sad about our lame-ness, so we continued to make treats over the next few days and say, "For day 4 of Valentines, lets make...."

I had lots of fun getting the preschool kids to make these cute valentines gifts for their parents where they blow kisses on a canvas.

Our branch had its annual Valentines Day dance. I feel pressure to get the dance going (not sure why) so I forced myself to get out there and bust some moves.  I loved how much Gwen wanted to dance and tried hard to always say yes to dancing with her.  Chris and I rarely get chances to dance and so I really enjoyed the 2 slow dances we got together. Charlie wanted to dance with me and Freddy too. Cute boys.  I tried to get Alec to ask a girl to dance and I asked him what it would take to bribe him to do it. He said he'd do it for $100.  Honestly, I'm not sure he would've done it even then!

On the 5th day of Valentines we actually made Creme Brulee. It was pretty much a fail. It had the right flavor, but we either baked it too long, or whipped it too much because the texture was really grainy. Oh well, we should try again.

Saturday and Sunday fun and Grandma Dixie comes!

The kids are supposed to clean their rooms, bathrooms and zones on Saturdays. Sometimes, it takes them all day because they get distracted and just end up playing. We try to encourage the kids to get it done early by thinking of something fun we can do once chores are done. There's not a whole lot to do here in Starkville, so we planned to go to the bouncy house place in Columbus one Saturday. Only we got there and realized the highest age cut off was 10, so Alec wouldn't be able to go on them. We decided to get a redbox movie and buy treats at the store instead. 

On Sundays our favorite tradition is to eat a treat at night while Chris reads a book aloud to us. We've read, The Hobbit, the Princess Bride, the first 4 or so books of the Chronicles of Narnia, and another book I can't recall at the moment. Currently we've started the Chronicles of Prydain with The Book of Three.

We've been enjoying the InstaPot that we got for Christmas from Chris' parents. We've tried beef stew, chili, whole frozen chicken, Tika Masala, hard boiled eggs, baked beans, pulled pork. Its pretty awesome.

Chris had to be gone for almost a week at a conference, so when Grandma Dixie asked when would be a good time to come out and help with Max, we knew exactly when to suggest. She came on a Thursday afternoon, and Chris left Saturday morning and was gone until Wednesday.

Dixie helped get the kids up and ready for school and helped take care of Max, sick Freddy and sick Gwen during Preschool, helped hold and quiet down Max in the evenings when he's pretty fussy and took care of most of the meals and cleaning. It was so helpful and wonderful to have her.  Max, I think, is getting too much air when he sucks. Theres this squeaking sound a lot of the time, and I can sometime hear him swallowing air when he chokes. I think this is the main cause of his fussiness with gas/moving bowels. He is SO tense and keeps a straight back and just really struggles and cries and fusses before passing gas or a poopy diaper.  I've been trying to burp him better (it takes FOREVER and is sooo hard to get a good burp out of him) and incline his head more when he nurses, and try to de-latch and re-latch him to get a better seal. Dixie seems to have a magic touch with him in getting him to be calm.

We hopped the back fence and went on a walk to see the horses with her. There were TONS of horses out and almost all of them looked pregnant, and we saw a few mama horses with their foals.  We found some hay that spilled out of a truck or something and had lots of fun feeding the horses.

Maxwell is totally smiling and cooing. I saw the first beginnings of a purposeful smile when he was about 4 weeks, but now he smiles all the time and he LOVES to talk to us. At his 2 month visit, the doctor was trying to look into his ears but Max didn't want to turn his head and break eye contact because he was in the middle of telling the doctor something. Dr. Ruff just stopped what he was doing and had a sweet little conversation with Max.  He said Max was way ahead of the game - social speaking. He was about in the 35 percentile for weight coming in around 11.5 lbs and the 45th for height.