my valentine

i love my husband. his birthday is feb 10 and so i usually end up flaking out for valentine's day. i always make him promise to not get me anything either, but he inevitably shows up with flowers, a card, and dark chocolate. the stuff is nice (that whole bag of chocolate is almost gone), but i love that russell is so thoughtful when he has a million other things to worry about right now and he was technically off the hook.

here's a couple pics from russell's birthday...calvin was so excited to give his dad the birthday card he made:
we had about 15 friends over for the party and ate shish-ka-bobs, loaded baked potatoes, fruit, salad, and cake. apparently 28 candles generate a lot of heat:
russell is one of the most ambitious and caring people i know. he chose a med school that focuses on serving underprivileged people and truly has a love for helping others. he's up at 6 everyday, rides his bike 5 miles to school, goes to class/studies til 5 or 6, rides home, eats dinner and plays w/ calvin, and then studies for a few more hours before bed. i admire his dedication as well as his efforts to be so available for us despite being so busy. it's very important to him to have weekends be for family time and i'm thankful for that. russell is an incredible dad and loves to spend time playing sports, trains, or anything with calvin. he's a kid at heart and is so fun to be around. this pregnancy has been a rough go for me and russell has been so good about helping out around the house and making sure i'm comfortable (and well-fed). i'm thankful that he's my valentine every year.

weekends

We've had some free weekends this month and have been able to spend a lot of time together. The weather has been gorgeous and we found a great park in Chandler, complete with a motorcycle, bus, and fire truck toy that you can drive. Calvin was in heaven:

We've also been playing a lot of "Sorry," which is Calvin's new favorite game. He actually will sit down and play it and just needs help counting out the spaces (and remembering not to cheat - he likes to take all his pieces out of start at once). My favorite is how he says "sorry" when he draws that card...I'm pretty sure he got this from Russell. It's pretty funny: