Love is in the air; Valentine's Day 2014

Well, not really, but we had a good time teasing about it this year.  D.J. and Spencer both had Valentine's dances to go to this year.  D.J.'s dance is like an initiation ceremony into pre-teen hood.  It is held every year for the sixth graders.  The music teacher even teaches them the waltz (which D.J. says he's pretty good at), the box step, line dances and such.  D.J. says his favorite is the Boot Scootin' Boogie.  They fill out dance cards (determined by games) to make sure everyone has partners.  The dance committee, made up of parents (mainly parents of girls I noticed), decorated the gym with balloons, hearts and pink.  I peeked my head in and maybe did a little bit of the robot as they played footloose, and was happy to see that D.J. was smiling and having a great time.  He asked me not to take a picture of any of the slow dances, but what else do you expect a mother to do? I only took one.  Also, he requested that, like his friends, he wear a pink tie.  So the day before the dance I went to a few stores (D.I. the first) to find a pink tie.  I found a pinkish-purple one that passed D.J. inspection and he likes it so much he wore it to church on Sunday, with just a few added pen marks on it.

 Amid the balloon arch made out of PVC pipe by my amazing friend Kim and her husband Matt.

 D.J. really does rock at the Boot Scootin' Boogie! I was impressed.  He has actually been learning these dances for the last two years with his Multi-Age Classroom, so he was plenty confident.  I also saw him doing the chicken and some fancy footwork down the Footloose dance line.

Here is the slow dance picture where he realized I was taking the picture so looked away.  Still, I have evidence.

Spencer's dance was an optional dance at the Jr. High.  I teased him about going and he assured me that he would not.  Later I asked him, seriously, if he was going to go and he said, "Mom, they don't even have food there." There's a boy for you, thinking about food.  We joked about him thinking about food while there were probably many girls wondering who would be there, who would ask me to dance, how do I look, etc.  He also added that they had to dress up for this dance which was very uninteresting to him.  He did receive one valentine from a girl who singled him out with a Crunch bar.  Well, that's not entirely true, she did tell Spencer that she wanted to give his friend Mason a Crunch bar, but that she also wanted to hit him. Drama.

James had a regular Elementary School Valentines day party.  He's the only one who I bought Valentines for this year.  They had monkeys on them.

Mark and I gave each boy the opportunity to go on a date with us.  So we took Spencer out for Breakfast at IHOP before he went ice fishing with the scouts.  James went to lunch at Granny Annie's where I called ahead to make sure they served meatloaf (his favorite).  When the meatloaf was served, James wouldn't eat it because there were obvious chunks of carrots in it.  He said it could've used a little of my sauce (happy Valentine to me). We took D.J. to Smokin' Bones where he ordered and ate a half rack of ribs before I finished off two ribs.  It was a little hard to get the boys to carry on a continuous conversation, but in the end I think they all felt special and loved, which is the whole point.

Great Grandma's Googley Glasses

After Christmas, we were able to stay with Great Grandma Wheeler for a few hours while her care givers were on vacation.  We helped dust and clean a bit, had lunch with her, let her Skype with my Mom and Dad and played games while she napped.  She is always so fun to be with and shares love with everyone around her.  I'm so glad my boys can know her!  Toward the end of our visit, I remembered a drawer in her hutch that contained glasses from years gone by.  My favorite ones, the green lens green horn rimmed glasses were removed, but we had fun with some others!

Cool dudes, wearing shades. 

What thinkest thou of these glasses? 

Purplish rose colored glasses?

80s retro (yes, I remember when they were popular).

Apparently these clip on to eyebrows. 

These make things look BIGGER!

A Kicker For All Seasons

You might recall from a previous post that the only thing D.J. wrote on his Christmas list was "the ability to play contact football" for Christmas.  Mark and I are pretty firm in not letting him play football because we are interested in protecting that wonderful brain he has and his well-working body.  But Mark told him that there are plenty of people who play college football who didn't play a day in high school, so he should work on conditioning and training himself to play football until the day of his 18th birthday when he can be responsible for his own body and brain's well-being.  In keeping with Mark's suggestion, D.J. is trying to get the most out of his football kicking net he received for Christmas.  There haven't been too many days since Christmas that have been above 30 degrees and free of snow, so practice times seem few and far between.  Here are a few shots of the star-bound kicker in action.