Valentine's Day

Saturday morning began early.  Very early.  Todd had mentioned to Josiah about getting a surprise on Valentine's Day, so Josiah woke up at 4:30 a.m. ready to go get the surprise.  And since it was Josiah, he never fell back asleep despite desperate pleading from me lying at the bottom of the bed while he lay in my spot.  Finally around 7 a.m., Todd took the boys to Shipley's Donuts to pick out a special doughnut each.  To work off the sugar high, we checked out a nearby park.  It was mostly a big (paved) trail type park with fountains and rocks to climb on.  After walking the trails for a while, we came to a playground which made the whole experience worth it to the kids.  The best part for Todd and I, besides the beautiful weather & scenery, were the signs to not get near the creek because of alligators.  We've never seen signs (in person) like that before.  The creek had a lot of turtles sunning themselves on rocks which the boys had a good time spotting.  To keep up the day of poor eating, the kids got Whataburger for dinner. (For Valentine's Day, I got to not cook.)  :) While going through the drive-thru, the lady asked if the kids were triplets.  We've never had that question before.  I get asked if the boys are twins a lot, but never triplets!

Henry likes the donuts with a giant blob of marshmallow fluff in the middle

Josiah goes for red donuts, if it has sprinkles all the better.

Henry has been talking about heaven a lot lately.  Many times a day he asks me, "When we get to heaven, that's it?" followed by, "We can't come back?"  His latest question for the weekend has been, "When Daddy dies and goes to heaven, can we get a dog?"  We've always told them we can't get a dog because of Daddy's allergies.  Cats are out of the question (due to our extreme dislike for the feline species).  Hopefully, death doesn't have to come before Henry gets his dog.

Caroline has started talking in 4-word sentences.  Mostly, it consists of, "I sit Mommy's wap."  She seems to want to sit in my lap every time she eats or is at the table for any reason.  If Henry is in my lap, she feels the need to sit in it as well.  Then if Josiah sees Henry and Caroline in my lap, he tries to climb up at which point the lap goes upright because fighting has commenced and no one is interested in backing down.

Josiah had a great day at Awana because he received his red Sparks vest.  He is extremely excited to have it and would wear it 24/7 if we let him.  The speed with which he is memorizing his Awana verses to earn the patches and jewels shows me just what he's capable of when (highly) motivated.  This weekend we went out and bought him a real Bible since last week they had to find the book of Romans and he couldn't do that in his Storybook Bible.  He is very proud of that as well.  He has the bookmark planted firmly in 2 Kings 22 - the story of King Josiah.  When we came home from Awana Wednesday night, Caroline greeted us at the door.  She will now bear hug whoever is coming through the door.  She grabs the boys from behind and gives them a big, long hug.

Earlier in the week, Josiah had a very loose tooth.  It had been very loose for quite some time but did not want to come out.  So one night, Josiah asked Henry if he would pull it out.  Henry pulled and pulled, but couldn't get it out.  Then in the bath tub, Henry grabbed a submarine toy and somehow pulled out Josiah's tooth.  Right now he's missing three teeth and has two more loose.

At church this morning, the boys, and all the preschoolers, sang a song in big church.  Since we haven't been at this church for too long, Henry didn't know the words to the song and basically stood there staring in the wrong direction for the duration of the song.  Josiah, who stood next to Henry, also stared in the wrong direction, but he at least knew some of the words.  The preschool director mentioned to me later how cute they were because they left big church holding hands.  It is sort of nice to be at a new church because they don't know what to expect each week just yet so they're always on their best behavior and not getting into mischief.  :)  Church must have tired them out, though, because when we got home, our back seat looked like this.  It was not to last though...

Josiah drew a "poster" of himself as he calls it.  He looked in the mirror to draw his face just right.

Caroline enjoyed putting all of her Valentine's day stickers on her shirt in 15 seconds.