The Big 3!

Olivia turned 3 on Feb 24th. The night before, while she was asleep, I set the table, put some presents by her plate, and put helium balloons all over the house. When she woke up, she was so excited and kept saying, "I'm 3 years old!" while practicing holding up 3 fingers. She was super pumped about her pancake with whip cream and strawberries until she opened her present from Grandma and Grandpa Martinsen. It was another doll with accessories to go with her dollhouse. Breakfast was over - she was totally focused.



Our next birthday event was a little party with some friends from the ward. I invited the kids and moms from our playgroup to come and play games and decorate cupcakes. We had a cake walk, a toy hunt (I bought a little toy for each friend that came and put their name on it, then hid it. They had to find their toy somewhere in the toy room. Then we had a treasure hunt. They ended up in the kitchen where the treasure was the cupcakes. They all seemed to have a great time, especially Olivia. She looooves people and is a little social butterfly (though I do admit, she was quite possessive of her new toys, and understandably so:)).



Our last activity was going to Grandma and Grandpa Monson's, which she was the most excited about. We had dinner and cake and ice cream and she opened more presents. I spent quite a while a few days ago in Toys R Us with Olivia (and Brooky) trying out tricycles. She liked them all of course and Brooky got quite attached to a dune buggy. Liv finally decided on the Minnie Mouse one with a billion little gadgets and gismos. It's super cute.


I love this picture of Livvy and Sophie. They have so much fun together.


Blowing out her candles on her very fancy cake. I do have to say this was dang good cake. I found it online, it's called "Too Much Chocolate Cake." It's so great I have to share the recipe.

1 box Devil's Food Chocolate Cake mix
1(5.9 oz) package instant chocolate pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs
1/2 cup warm water
2 cups semi sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix together in a large bowl the cake and pudding mixes, sour cream, oil, beaten eggs, and water. Stir in chocolate chips and pour batter into a well greased 12 cup bundt pan (I always just use a regular cake pan). Bake for 50 - 55 minutes or until the top is springy to the touch or a toothpick comes out clean. Cool cake thoroughly in pan before transferring onto a plate. Sprinkle powdered sugar on top, or I used cream cheese frosting. Ohhhh, this is the yummiest cake and quite addicting so beware.

Love Month

My cousin Emy was the inspiration behind the Love month idea (and I have to say if you read this Emy that I straight up copied a lot of your ideas:)). I do have to say that I will be doing this for the rest of my life. It was the greatest thing for our marriage. Every day I did something for Rob to show my love for him. It was kind of amazing how I felt so much love for him just thinking about what I was going to do for him that day. I've realized that I think a lot about our girls and how to teach them and discipline them and make sure they feel loved and safe etc. Do I spend as much time doing that for the most important person in my life? Do I think about what his needs are and how I can make him feel loved and cared for etc.? So thanks Emy for sharing this with me. The one thing I'll do differently next year is write down my thoughts each day. I am just going back and trying to remember what I did, which isn't as good.

Day 1 Decorating the house: I hung hearts and pictures of Rob and I throughout the house.


Day 2 I crept upstairs early in the morning and put Rob's favorite cereal on the counter so he would see it when he woke up.


Day 3 The girls and I made heart shaped pancakes for Rob (with crunchy peanut butter on top).


Day 4 I made him lunch, wrote a love note including all the things I was grateful to him for, and then stuck it in his lunch.

Day 5 I texted him and said lots of nice things:)

Day 6 I bought him his favorite drink. I didn't even mean to do this but if you look at the note then read the label of the drink together, it's pretty hilarious.


Day 7 Livvy, Brooky, and I made no bake cookies in the shape of hearts. The girls have had fun being a part of love month too. Livvy gets so excited to make anything heart shaped:)


Day 8 Family Home Evening was on our courtship and marriage. I brought out our wedding photo album and we looked at pictures of my bridal shower and wedding. We talked about getting married in the temple. Livvy said, "I will get married in the temple too!" It was precious. It is so much fun to look at those pictures and remember those feelings of anticipation, nervousness, and excitement.

Day 9 I planned a Valentine's date with some couples in the ward. We went to Olive Garden then back to our friend's house for games. Previously I had asked the wives to share a little about their courtship. Then I wrote the facts on a heart shaped paper. I read each heart and each person there guessed which couple it was. They got a point for each correct guess. Then we played How well do you know your spouse? I asked several questions: Favorites, If you could go anywhere in the world where would you go, etc. etc. Couples wrote down what they thought their spouse would say about them. Each correct answer got a point. After both games couples totaled up the points and the winner got a $5 gift card to the creamery. It was super fun, everyone had a great time. So sad, I forgot my camera!

Day 10 I gave Rob a very needed massage. He gets a lot of aches and pains from sitting at a computer so much of the day. He really appreciated it.

Day 11 I ordered a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's for dinner.


Day 12 While getting ready for bed, I snuck into the bathroom, took some dark red lipstick, and wrote on the bathroom mirror, "Thank you Rob for a beautiful life," and "You make every part of my life better." When he went in to finish up he saw it and was so grateful. He told me it made him feel so good.

Day 13 I honestly don't remember:)

Day 14 I woke up and told Rob I was going to go running. The night before I had taken his office keys and hid them so I could sneak into his office and decorate it. I got some balloons, some cashews, and a favorite drink and put them all in his office, along with a top 10 list of why I love Rob. Each number was written on a different heart and I stuck them all over. It would have been the best surprise, but unfortunately Rob had been looking for his keys when I got home and he asked me if I knew where they were. I started to say I don't know but I could not keep a straight face!! Foiled!! He still loved it and did get a bit of footage before the camera ran out of batteries.



I'm proud to say I did quite well until the 15th, then it got a little sketchy. We started our renovations and were both so busy that there were several days of quick texts or little notes, not a lot of planning. I did go all out the last day of the month. We'll skip to the 29th:)

Day 29 While Rob was at work I cleaned the house really thoroughly, did all the laundry, and organized our disaster of a room and put a plant in it with white light strung on it. I made a little dinner for the girls and while Rob bathed the girls I ordered take out from Macaroni Grill. I picked it up and got wine glasses with cranberry juice and set it up in our room. We then had a very romantic dinner and watched a couple episodes of one of our favorite TV series. It was so fun. I'm sad to see Love Month end and I want to keep doing it in a smaller scale throughout the year.