My funny valentines

I'm trying something new, seeing as I still haven't polished and uploaded my birthday letter to Finn, or even photos from his party over a month ago... I'm going to try to post something every weekend or so. (See how I give myself a little wiggle room there already? I'm a slippery one.)

The boys were full of love and happiness on Valentine's Day, thrilled with a heart-shaped box of chocolates and special pancakes for the day. We even had steak with chocolate sauce for dinner: très elegant!

They did a lovely job with valentines this year. I thought they'd want to buy superhero cards or something, but they both opted to make their own. Finn stamped hearts and signed his name to each one, and Calvin folded, addressed and signed some neat standing cut-out creatures we downloaded.

The munchkins recently discovered Photo Booth on my computer, yielding such treats as these shots:

(There's plenty more like those if you have an hour or two to sit through a slideshow.)

Finn has been rearranging the furniture, pushing all the chairs together in the kitchen for various adventures. There's a clip of him "flying" this structure while listening to "Snoopy vs. the Red Baron," featuring enough butt-wiggling that I'm leery of putting it on YouTube. I will have it ready, however, when I meet his prom date a dozen years from now. Here's the house he built — note the "game room" on the left:

Calvin sweet-talked me into helping him whip up some ganache last week, and this morning he rolled his own truffles. He's decided they would make perfect gifts. (If you want one, however, you'll need to visit because they require refrigeration. They're worth the trip though: so good!)

We kicked off a week without school by literally forcing the children out of the house. They hate the idea of a hike. We didn't tell them what we were up to when we left the house. They realized what was up as we pulled in to the parking lot of Rancho San Antonio and the whining began. The lot was overflowing, so we headed over to the Dish at Stanford — no parking there either. And no break in the whining.

So we headed to Shoreline Park in Mountain View, and the kids kept whining ... until they got out of the car. And we enjoyed a wonderfully windy mini-adventure by the bay — and the boys asked if we could go again, soon please. We will. And they'll forget how much they liked it and whine all the way there, and we'll do it all over again.