the second happiest place on earth: Elmo, be mine

At about 7am John and I heard the twins running up and down the hallway. I had my back to the bedroom door but soon it sounded like the door was opening. A second later was a "SHHHHHHHHHHHH!" as loud as a 2 year-old could possibly muster, followed by an equally loud "SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" in a slightly different voice, and another "SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" in the first voice. The irony was irresistible and we started giggling. Our playing dead now rendered useless, I turned around to see Allison and Kate, shoulder to shoulder, on my side of the bed. "Hi, Mama!" Allison cheered, and the day was unavoidably underway.

Following last night's rain it was wet outside this morning so we moved the planned valentine's get-together with our friends from the park to our house. Valentine's Day used to be a grown-up occasion with hard to get dinner reservations and such. I'd like to be able to take John out for dinner and a movie, which we have the opportunity to do far too rarely these days, (or rather, these years), but this isn't a good week for that. Friday we leave for several days of skiing and John has a lot of work to finish up before we go. And Wednesdays I always work late. Maybe next year. So at this point VDay really feels like it's fallen into the "kid holiday" category, like Easter, which we participate in to a very minimal degree for the sake of the kids' enjoyment.

For our little party, everyone brought a snack to share and cards to give out. Last night Erin and I wrote out and decorated a set of blank cards as our snack contribution (valentine's cookies) baked. Erin had a great time getting to choose and apply the stickers and she signed each card. Her crayonmanship is definitely above par for a 4 year-old.

We all like having guests over. I think everyone had fun, and everyone certainly had an appetite. The kids gorged themselves on cookies, peanut butter crackers, pineapple, and cheese & pear snack wraps and somehow they had room for lunch about a half an hour later. Funny how 3 bites of vegetables fills Erin up but after 4 cookies she is still asking for more. Cookies must shrink in the stomach. Amazingly, the mess created after 7 kids (and two infants) play for a couple of hours really doesn't differ much from what our own 3 create in that same amount of time on a daily basis, which says a lot about the girls' redecorating skills.