Happy Valentines Day!

Above: Eldon and Enola- aren't they just adorable!

Last night Josh and I got to go out to dinner all by ourselves thanks to the youth group! The kids have been enjoying receiving some valentines in the mail and at school, and of course have had way more sugar than is reasonable already this weekend! We are looking forward to our family tradition of spaghetti dinner, made by daddy! (Either tonight or tomorrow night)

Mom, I must admit that pirate tatoos seem like an odd valentines gift for the boys, but somehow it fits so well! Marcus has been walking around the house all morning with his gun singing "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me!" It is scary how well that song fits him!

At the moment the kids and I are trying to lay low and stay out of daddy's way. As many of you know, we have been having some problems with our cell phones lately. Verizon decided to increase our bill by $20/month for no reason, so on principle Josh decided we needed to switch to another carrier. He found a better deal that will (of course) save us money in the long run. One minor problem- we seem to get no reception at all inside the house. While we can text, email, go on facebook, and check the latest headlines from our phones, we cannot seem to get enough reception to place a simple phone call. To add to the frustration, the phones seem to work perfectly as soon as we go up the small hill to the church parking lot.

We have 30 days to try out these phones and back out of this contract if we must. But to Josh, failure is not an option. He has been up on the roof, in the attic, and online on and off all week, doing his best to apply his mental super-powers to conquer this problem. He's been in and out of the house at least fifty times this morning, grumbling and pacing and staring at his cell phone, trying to get the antennae just a little bit higher so it works. Meanwhile, I am trying to answer the children's questions... like, "Why is daddy still outside? It's cold out there!" "Why does daddy need his drill?" "What is that long pole for?" "Why is daddy mad?" and "Is daddy going to make the ceiling fall down?"

The cold drafts and the chill of daddy frustration have us all under blankets and quiet, waiting..... waiting..... until we hear his victory cry.