If you give your kids your phone...

These pics kinda crack me up...the joys of technology i guess. If you could only see the crazy videos I get on there as well.

Vday and Dates

ells made her own valentines this year and added cool color changing pens.

I'm not sure if I'm just crazy but holidays and well pinterest or my crazy brain always try to make something much harder than it needs to be. Case in point above. Heart shaped rice krispie treats for ells class.
I volunteered to bring a treat for the class to enjoy. I mean no big deal. Right?  However a kid needing to go potty, sticky hands, and sticky everything just makes me go crazy. Then my heart shaped cookie cutter is now not so heart shaped. And then in frustration I eat all the leftovers and I don't even love rice krispie treats. We did drizzle some cute pink frosting on them and bagged them up and they were cute but do the kids care. No. I'm not sure why I do. And then I don't even take a photo of the cute ones. UGH!

Well we had a fun valentines day and weekend. We got to treat our littles to some fun gifts and daddy got ells and I some pretty flowers which lasted forever. Win win!

We also got to celebrate with Ells going to her first daddy daughter dance with d. They went out to eat and danced the night away. Well ells did. The girls danced and the daddys chatted I guess. D said she was having fun and didn't want to dance with him. How has that worn off already?

And not to be left out...Shadd and I had a date morning with a quick target run and some starbucks and qwirkle.

Ells Music Concert

One of my favorite things is the school concert. I love seeing the kids perform and its just a fun little extra where we get to see the kids amongst their peers. 

This year ells got the honor of playing the hand chimes (i think). she was the only one so it was a big deal. We are so so proud of her.

ells class all dressed up! 

Trip to Minneapolis

This year one of the kids Christmas presents was a trip up north to Minneapolis.

Nothing like heading north in the middle of the winter. It was freezing. Like froze all our bottled water in the car type of freezing!

We stayed at the Embassy Suites. We love their breakfast and well we need space so suites are about all that works for us anymore.

We hit up the pool multiple times. They had a huge hot tub!

We went to the Mall of America on Friday. The kids didn't have school. Thankfully Papa and Frama were willing to tag along otherwise I don't think we could have managed all these guys and squeezed in some fun.

After trying a few rides and being reminded of the price tag by d the entire time we headed to lunch at the Rainforest cafe. Minus the scary storm sequence which freaked a sleeping baby and a moving snake that had z clinging to my leg we had a huge lunch and were so stuffed. 

 We  hit up the lego store. The sculptures were so cool and the kids were in awe. After talking them about price range we left with an angry birds set up for sage and the bat mobile for shadd.

they probably would have played here all day

 Then us girls went to tea time. There was a ton of food. So next time we will not be eating lunch prior. The store treated ells and her dolly and us like royalty. We left with lots of goodies and would totally recommend tea time for anyone! It was super fun!

Meanwhile the boys were dealing with an epic stink bomb during mini golf. First sage lost his putter over the side so like floor three to two kinda thing. Whoops. And then z had a huge blowout. Up his back etc. We were potty training but put a diaper on for the day. Thank goodness. However it was everywhere. They brought the stinking dude to me looking for wipes only to find out well we didn't have any as I had used the last of them on laz earlier in the day. Needless to say, I apologize to whoever used the bathroom after I cleaned up that mess. And well wipes are way way better then toilet paper. He got a bath immediately when we returned to the hotel! YUCK!

I swear you name it we've probably had it happen to us. I guess thats what 5 kiddos does to ya. You experience just about everything! Ahh well!

We had a blast and the kids did great. Laz still could you some sleep work in hotels but so it goes.
We even got to stop and drop in on some of our besties up north who had a new baby. So it was such a great trip. The kids can't wait to go again! And things can only go better and better each year I hope!