Valentine-ing

We started out the week by making these lovely Valentine cards for the special ladies in Jack's life-- the idea came via the ladies at Sugar City Journal. It was a fun project that only took Sunday morning and part of the afternoon. Basically Jack drew a Valentine inspired picture and I made copies of it onto card stock and I exacto'd out some of the picture and we mounted them on glittery scrapbook paper. It was pretty fun. Then Jack wrote out little greetings on the backs and we sent them off on their merry way.





Wednesday we made some cutout cookies and decorated them. Made ourselves sick with frosting and candy toppings, but it was worth it. They turned out pretty good-- Jack made a special one for his Kindergarten teacher and took it in on Friday with her little gift.





Friday night Jack and Randy planned to do my Valentine shopping-- apparently Jack devised a plan to get me something really good. Here is a little snippet of the conversation according to Randy (picture this in a jewelry store)
Jack: Dad-- I want to get mom earrings
Randy: Jack, I think we should surprise her and get her a new camera
Jack: Dad, I think she wants more jewelry
Randy: Jack, she has lots of jewelry and she has been wanting a new camera, I think we should try to surprise her with one.
Jack: Dad, giving presents isn't about you, it is about the person you are giving it to.
Randy: Which one's did she say she wanted?

I guess Jack could not find the earrings I had been eyeing in the case and looked at every single pair and settled a pair of aquamarine studs. They aren't typically something I would pick out for myself-- but I love them because Jack picked them out and I have worn them everyday.

Saturday morning I woke up to a quiet house, the boys woke up early and snuck off. They returned with daffodils and stuff for breakfast.



Saturday afternoon Jack had Sheldon's birthday party to go to and had a great time. I had already confirmed with his mother that we could just drop him off and have a few hours to ourselves. Randy took me to this little hamburger place he has been wanting to go back to, I know, but holy cow that was a really good burger. Afterward we decided to wonder over to Circuit City and see what was on sale- we ended up stumbling upon a 22" flat panel monitor we have been watching and got it for a really good price. After all that excitement we picked up Jack from the party and headed home.

We had a great weekend and now I have this to look at all week.

Salvaged Saturday

Jack had some major plans today-- his friend Sheldon's 6th birthday party. Jack has been extremely excited ever since he received the invite in the mail last weekend. Everyday he has been counting off the days, he had planned out the perfect gift for Sheldon. This morning Jack played a little Lego Star Wars with his Dad on the Wii and after a last minute personal hygiene situation, Jack was showered and ready to go. I picked up my cell phone to check the time and the unthinkable happened, there was a missed call and a voicemail-- from Sheldon's mom. OH NO! I checked my voicemail and learned she awoke to one very sick little boy and was having to cancel & reschedule the party. As soon as I hung up the phone I looked at Jack and could instantly tell we were entering the pre-stages of a very broody afternoon (Jack has the tendency to mope around like a mini tortured poet when things go awry--I seriously wonder if I have a 16 year old trapped in a 6 year old body).

Randy must have been on the same wave length as me as I see him walk towards the office and get on the computer. Through a little quick parent mini conference we conclude in 5 seconds to take Jack to Coraline and McD's for lunch. I know it is bad, but sometimes you have to play that card-- besides we never eat there anymore, so once in awhile it is OK, especially with the aforementioned broodiness.

We decide it will be more fun to surprise Jack with all of this and just tell him he is coming along with us for our errands and lunch we were going to during the party. I don't know if this is normal or not, but Jack tends not to get excited about anything-at all, so we try to surprise him to elicit some type of excited emotional response to something, it very rarely works. Needless to Jack is not excited at the thought of going to sushi and a tax appointment.

Stop #1- McD's, we get out of the car and he looks at McD's and says, "They don't have Sushi here" in a completely dead pan tone. So we take the trickery a little further and tell him we are just parking here and walking to the other side to the sushi restaurant. Once inside McD's he asks if he can get something there and we can just get sushi (Jack is also a great problem solver-- always figuring out a way to settle both sides of an issue) we then decided it would be good to let him know we were really going to have lunch at McD's and there was a little knowing glimmer of a smile. He told me he would just have his, "usual"-- which he says as his "uj".

Stop #2- Joann's, I really did need to pick up some scrap booking items for tomorrow afternoon's project, we are making Valentines for all the special ladies in Jack's life. It should be fun and I will post some pics. We also had about 30 minutes to kill before heading over to the movie theater and going to Joann's put us in the same complex as the theater.

Stop #3-- Coraline We popped the Joann's purchases in the trunk of the car and walked over to the theater and got the tickets. Once we were inside I turned to him and asked if he knew where we were going and he shrugged and said, "Um, Coraline?" The movie was AWESOME-- seriously good and very cute and wonderful, one of the best kids movies I have seen in awhile. Very, very, very good.

So I think I managed to salvage Saturday afternoon and now he has something to look forward to next Saturday, but I just really really really wish that maybe one time, he would get excited about something... just one time. He sure can play it cool though.