Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's day rocked this year! We gave some love (in the form of awesome hand-crafted Valentines as seen below as well as some transformed crayon hearts) and we received MUCH love! I like childlike Valentine's much better than "you're single, bah haha, my life stinks" V-days adolescence seemed to slam in my face.

Alyssa and Erik worked hard creating unique hearts for our dear families!

Sometimes Alyssa looked like this when she was making a Valentine...but she still loves you!

Voila! Hearts with eyes, ears, mouth, and nose...and earrings!

We also made heart sugar cookies. Mmmm. I justified this only because we were having the missionaries over for dinner. I think that my sugar intake was higher for V-day than for Christmas. I was not mentally prepared to withstand the Valentine's sugar rush.

We received lots of love! Packages from Grandma and Nana came. Aunt Claire sent Alyssa a Frozen t-shirt and I made her that nifty skirt. The Valentine Man (who she thinks was the mailman) brought her a balloon and lip gloss! We also got a HUGE heart of chocolate from an anonymous friend with a cute book called Somebody Loves You, Mr. Hatch! It was a special day!

Familia Fotos

Amelia Brame did a familia foto shoot for us! I was very pleased with how they turned out! She did an excellent job of capturing us.

Something was really, genuinely funny. I promise. But I do not know what!

 

Alyssa staged this photo. She wanted us to spin around the poles!

Headlock! Alyssa's favorite position for the three of us!

And may I say that coordinating outfits is not my forte and that Erik is happy that I am smiling in these pictures because I did not feel very happy upon choosing my outfit. Oh well. My full justification is that I wanted to look like us - the Archibalds. And I think we do!

A Hike to Owen's Creek Waterfall

We have a goal. Our goal is to do a backpacking trip this summer (2015). We would like Alyssa to walk the entire thing. It won't be too long and it may be slow, but we would like to be unplugged and one with nature and we want Alyssa to develop a love for all that is beautiful early on in life. 

Therefore, to achieve this goal, we must prepare. We told said goal to some friends and they told us about this hike:

Now, this was 2.5 miles one way, so we figured we could get to the falls and Erik could run back along the road (because this hike is along the Natchez Trace) and retrieve our car. It was our first real endeavor at hiking with Alyssa walking the whole way - maybe ambitious, but doable.

We established a rule - no complaining or you will be left behind.

We somehow did not establish the rule of "do not bring unnecessary junk" - hence New baby and a backpack with a few books brought by Alyssa.

The morning was beautiful - a little chilly, but not unbearable. We hiked along, sang some songs, pretended we were driving a bus, ate some snacks...you know, all those good things.

My GPS watch died about 45 minutes into the hike and so we were not able to track how far we had come. But somewhere along 1.7 miles we lost the trail so we hiked out to the road and Erik ran back to get the car and Alyssa and I walked the road to the falls! She did a stupendous job! No complaining! And when she asked if she could ride on Erik's shoulders, Erik would say, "How about you carry me on your shoulders?" And someone how the conversation was diverted in other directions and she walked the full distance on her own two feet.

When we got to Owen's Creek we found out that it was actually closed. Boo. And since we were willing to pay a $5000 fine or 6 months in jail if we got caught past the fence, we stayed right where we were. I do declare that it would have been nice to have a closed trail warning at the get-go, however!

Here is a picture of the small waterfall that greeted us from the road side stop! Woo hooooo!

After hiking 2.5+ miles Alyssa was still up for a game of "you can't catch me" which ended in Erik rolling his ankle and skinning his knee...he is still a gimp today (9 days later).

Daffodils In February

Sometimes Mississippi gets a bad rap. But when daffodils blooms spontaneously in February, we can forgive some of its less desirable qualities.

Alyssa's 2014 Birthday

Just for the record, Alyssa turned 3 last year...in April. After posting about our birthdays I feel it is sill not to mention hers...even if I am 9 months late! I never posted anything about it because I think that was about the time we were having camera/computer crises. But...just so we always remember, here is her Olaf cake.

Some friends came over and enjoyed the cake with us and Alyssa still will tell you that Ian ate the pretzel arms off of Olaf.

She received bounteous gifts and the day was beautiful! We played outside and had a good ol' time. I think she would tell you that she has liked being three. She has had a lot of good adventures and mastered many things! We are happy Alyssa is in our family.

Birthdays All Around

Erik and I upped our ages in January. We are all feeling a little bit older around here and thankfully my birthday actually helped me to remember how young I really am! I still have 3 more birthdays and 4 full years before I even celebrate the big 3.0.!

We kind of ate our way through both our birthdays. Erik had lots of food requests - egg, bacon, cheese bagel sandwiches for breakfast, pulled pork for dinner and a whole cheesecake to eat by himself. We played games on his birthday and had a good ol' time.

Erik and Alyssa sporting birthday shirts sent from Aunt Martha.

The things I liked about my birthday were coming home from a run to see Alyssa tracing Happy  Birthday on the white board and then having her tell me that she is wearing her party dress because it's my birthday and the cream cheese rolls I made with the Lion House dough recipe. Good choice, go me.



I got new Chacos and Jambuuuuuus (extra u's for effect). It was a birthday of shoes!



I also got to make peanut butter bars with my friends and get a pedicure! (I then had to find a group of people to eat those bars. Wholly molly they were rich!)

Alyssa and I played Frozen outside and I was Elsa at this point because I was wearing the crown. At one point I was prentending to cry on a frozen Anna who had just saved my life. My neighbor came out because she thought something was wrong. She decided it was important to be nosey if someone was in distress.

Nope. No distress here, just reenacting only the most elaborate demonstration of love Disney has made in the last 18 months.



Erik and Alyssa made me a cake, I received delish chocolate cupcakes from a friend, we saw Tarzan at one of the high schools, and I talked to my awesome familia.



My cake was a square and a circle and Alyssa frosted it and dumped the sprinkles for me!!

We had to eat through the center first because that is where all the sprinkles were! Yum!

 

Yes. That's a lot about me and my awesome day.

I'm just struggling getting rid of my old Chacos. It's like saying good bye to your best friend but much more permanent. Is there a place I can lay them to rest? I'm sad that they will never call or write! 7.5 years is a long time together!