Are you ready for Valentine's Day?

Fast Facts

Valentine's Day is February 14.

In 2009, Valentine's Day falls on a Saturday.

Traditional Valentine's day imagery includes hearts, Cupid, candy, kissing couples, hand-holding, cute animals.

Valentine's Day is named for St. Valentine, the patron saint of lovers.

Popular gifts to give on Valentine's Day include candy, flowers, cards.






Valentine's Day Trivia

Valentine's Day is the second largest card-sending holiday in America, with the first being Christmas.

More than half of America's roses are grown in the state of California, however, during Valentine's Day, most of the roses sold in shops are imported from South America.

Hallmark makes over 1300 different cards specifically for Valentine's Day.

The earliest known Valentine was sent during the early 1400s by the Duke of Orleans. While imprisoned in the tower of London, he sent love letters to his wife. The Valentine is still on display today in the Museum of England.

January is gone ....

It is hard to believe that a month has gone by in this new year! And I can't believe 2 weeks have flown by for Bryanna's boot! Last week we were freezing (yes, our temps got into the low 30's for a few days) and it was COLD!!!! I am glad there was no snow to go along with those cold temps. The girls bundled up - Torrie had a hat and gloves on, Bryanna was "too cool" for that so she just wore her jacket. We had the heat on several times.

The beginning of this week started out warm and humid. Vero Beach tied a record yesterday at 85. We had the air on Wednesday & Thursday with the humidity up. Today, we are going into the 40's! The rain came about 11 am and with it came the cold weather. Tomorrow night is supposed to be even colder!

Bryanna went to the doctor today with her foot. She has been walking on it in the house and she says it feels better. Doc was a bit skeptical and said she could use her sneaker but still not play basketball for 2 more weeks. She wants to play basketball sooooo bad and there are 2 games this coming week. It is also Spirit Week next week at school so the kids have a theme for each day. Bryanna is also going to go to the Valentine Banquet with the other girls from the team. It is semi-formal so she will need a gown! She is excited about picking it out - so we will shop next week for it.

Torrie is running around doing errands with me. She has been doing some beading and learning her numbers on the Handwriting without Tears board. We are also working on recognizing letters and I am "trying" different size and shape of letters in magazines. We went to check out a voluntary pre-k yesterday - the same school Bryanna was at 10 years ago. We are going to check out one more school next week. I go to the VPK office next week to get the papers to register Torrie. I am going to register her, but am unsure if she will go in August or if we will keep her home. At the VPK we were at, they have homework Mon-Thurs and the kids "need" to know a number of things before they get to kindergarten. We will see where God leads us on this!

We will be doing the Carenet "Walk for Life" on February 7th. We will be walking a mile around Jensen Beach High School. It will be fun and we know several people who will also be walking.

Bryanna is at it again !

Well, last year, Bryanna had a wrist fracture from being bucked off Paycheck. This year, it is basketball.

She was warming up for practice last Tuesday. She slipped on water from ice the boys were throwing at one another. She twisted her ankle; she went to school on Wednesday with crutches. It was hard for her to go up and down the stairs and her ankle was hurting her. She stayed home Thurs and Fri. Yesterday, we went to the orthopedic doc. She may have a fracture along the growth plate and the doc is taking a precaution with it. He has Bryanna in a walking boot for 6 weeks - she will miss all but 1 of her basketball games!

Bryanna can walk in it and it is more comfortable without the crutches. She needs to ice it down and use Aleve like she has been. Bryanna went to the boys game yesterday (coach wants the girls to support the boys and vice versa) and then she had a sleepover with a few of the girls from her team. She had a great time and stayed up yakking with the girls and the dogs they have (dachshounds).

We will be happy when Bryanna is done with sports for this year ... but we are glad we have a great ortho group in town! (We know this injury could have been worse so we are truly grateful for this blessing.)

For Parents EVERYWHERE ....

The MOM SONG has come back!!! (It got deleted for a few days, and now I have a new link).

Grab a cup of coffee and enjoy this video. First, scroll down to the tunes on the bottom of the blog and hit the "stop" button. Scroll back up to The MOM SONG and sit back and listen/watch the words. This is for parents EVERYWHERE!!! You will cry from it being soooo true!!!

I understand that the singer was at Women of Faith this year.

The Girls at Play!

Both girls have been enjoying playing this week .... Torrie played in shaving cream the other day and LOVED it!! She enjoyed smooshing it between her fingers, making castles and a "trampoline" and just mooshing it all over the cookie sheet. She could have stayed there for hours just playing. The next day, she played with play-do and cookie cutters. Torrie used scissors and a knife to cut with and then decided to pull the play-do into a thousand pieces! Torrie also got to play with Mikala, Gwen, Kylie and Katerina on 2 different days at the parks. Torrie loves the slides and the sand (2 yrs ago, the sand was her worst enemy and her shrieks were so loud you thought you were murdering her).

Bryanna went back to school and both of us were pretty tired having to wake up early to go back. This week was exam week and the grades should be posted by this weekend. (She is halfway thru the year!). Yesterday was the first game for her basketball team and their opponent, Liberty Baptist. Our girls did not do well - they lost 42 to 4. Bryanna scored the first basket and played some good ball. She was t-i-r-e-d after playing all 4 quarters! They will be practicing hard this week. Bryanna's next game is at Greenacres on Jan. 20th. There are only about 5 games for the girls thru February.

Today we are enjoying the house being open; we actually had to close some of the windows with the breeze! Blaze and Minnie are enjoying being out of their coats and running around on the side of the house.

Looking back at 2008 ....

It seems the year went by very quickly. I have made a movie of what the girls did during the year. We started with Bryanna's school closing the 5th-7th grades so we ended up homeschooling her. It gave us the time we needed for her to get ready with Paycheck for the county fair and a few other events. We went on a number of field trips and enjoyed all of them.

Bryanna went back to school in August - she is at Faith Baptist School in Fort Pierce. She is doing all A-beka curriculum and is doing quite well considering she came from our "eclectic" homeschool curriculum! She is on the basketball team and was on the volleyball team.

Torrie is growing by leaps and bounds! She has Bryanna on a pedestal and wants to do everything Bryanna does! She is now 4 and thinks she is an adult!! She loves being home (we pulled her out of Head Start) and she has been enjoying the Christmas baking and decorating.

Both girls are looking forward to this year.

Happy New Year !!

Happy New Year to all!!! Hope everyone's New Year's Eve was quiet as you rang in 2009.

We went to a friend's house and had a great time. They had a huge bonfire going and we sat near it. There was so much food to eat and all of it was very tasty; of course, all the calories were taken out! HA HA HA

David brought Torrie and I home as both of us were tired. He went back and enjoyed some of the fireworks for the new year.

The first day of the year was very quiet for us. Torrie and I joined another friend at the park so that the kiddos could run around. It was cold with the wind and front that had come in. But we enjoyed being in the fresh air while the kids played with swings, slides and toys.

We are winding down on Bryanna's Christmas vacation, and I don't know how she will be able to get up early again for school as she has been sleeping in late this whole week. She will have basketball practice every day so that the team will be ready to go for its season. She is excited about being on the girl's basketball team! (She is better at basketball than she was at volleyball).

Check out our new website that is listed below (go to the site and visit it and the products). Call David if you want more info on any of it.

Hope everyone will have a very prosperous and healthy 2009 with many blessings from God.