With Valentines day rapidly approaching and the kids needing to be busy, I sat them down with paint, crayons, glue, glitter, and paper to make up some Valentine cards. We had already bought some chocolates for her and now she will have some handmade cards to go with them. It was a blast. Leif particularly liked the glitter and looked like a sparkly vampire sitting in a sparkly vampire throne by the time we were done.

We’ve never been ones to celebrate Superbowl in any way other than using it as an excuse to eat chicken wings. We don’t have favorite teams or even watch football. Our past efforts mostly include trying to watch crappy football movies, eat chicken wings, and drink beer. But with no real excitement behind it all, it ends up just being a chicken wing, beer, and crappy movie Sunday.

This year was different. One of Holly’s girlfriend lives in Pittsburgh and is, of course, a huge Steelers fan. She had even sent us a care package a few weeks back that contained a few Steelers pens. Therefore, we actually had a team to root for, and therefore, had a real reason to celebrate Superbowl. So that is what we did.

We made ourselves a wonderful menu of chicken wings, chips, guacamole, home-made ice cream, beer (mostly my own of course), and peanut butter pie. Then we invited some friends over. What’s a Superbowl party without friends after all?

We sat and watched the big game, all the while explaining how it works to Holly. She finally caught on and said, “I can see how this could be exciting and intense.”

In the end, of course, the Steelers lost, but otherwise, we finally had our first successful Superbowl celebration.

So over Christmas, my best friend Jean ended up in Hawaii for an awesome Hawaiian cruise. Lucky her. Also, lucky me. Due to the awesome timing of it all, I was able to spend just about a whole day with her while she was here. We didn’t really do a super lot as far as vacations go, but we took the road to Hana and spent a few hours at my house talkin story and catching up. It was pretty darn awesome. It totally made my year.

Today, I received a delicious thank you package filled with Trader Joe’s goodies and a few photos taken while she was here. To that I say “thank you” back. I was so excited when I opened the box that we opened just about every container  right there in the car. Thank you again. I miss you already.

Remember that Leapster2 that Leif broke just after Christmas? Well, I decided to email Leapfrog about it after hearing about their good customer service. Turns out they were right. After a few back and forth emails with them, they informed me that they would replace the Leapster2 free of charge. Sure enough, a week later, there was a brand new Leapster2 box in the mail for us. Hooray! Now he can play that Wall-E game he never had the chance to play. Leif has his “baby DS” back.

The time has finally come to empty my closet of the many skull adorned Metallica t-shirts I have collected over the years of my youth. They add up to about 16 shirts that fill space in my closet. I just can’t bring myself to give them away, and I can’t justify the use of space by wearing them anymore. So what do I do with them? I’ve decided that instead of storing them away next to my Metallica dolls action figures, I will cut them up and make them into a quilt. Many people have made t-shirt quilts, but mine is going to be way better. Why? Becuase I’m making it.

Today I pulled out all my shirts (minus two that I still wear quite often), cut them up, photographed them, and planned out my awesome quilt. With much layout arrangements and re-arrangements, this is what I have come up with. Wish me luck.