8 is GREAT!

Rylie informed us how wonderful February is; it’s Deacon’s birthday, Ethan’s birthday, Aunt Becky’s birthday, Valentine’s Day, and her birthday!  Yep, a great month.  We especially love that it’s Rylie’s birthday!  On her actual birthday (landed on a Thursday), she opted for the day off of school, so we played games, watched movies, and spoiled her with her choice of breakfast, lunch and dinner, along with ice cream sundaes for dessert (cake is on Sunday with friends).  It was a very nice day.   

 

We celebrated Rylie’s 8^th birthday with friends from town and ballet class at Columbino’s.  She had a pizza party with several games dedicated to a Lalaloopsy theme and opened more gifts.  The party was a hit and we thank Marina and Rita for helping the local Ukrainian kids have a good time by interpreting everything for us!  Rylie loves celebrating with people and her chocolate and strawberry 3-tierred cake was a hit!

Burnin' Love

February was filled with a lot of sweets and a lot of love!  We managed our 3^rd Valentine party with the French students and local Ukrainian kids.  This year the girls even got to use Valentine cards from the States instead of tediously making each one by hand (thanks Mom Grall and Mr. Robert)!   

The party was a big hit, and Rylie won 3 out of 4 games, but she graciously allowed the 2^nd place kids to take the first place prize.  Friends, candy and games made our Valentine’s Day fun.  Our morning had started with a balloon and small gifts for the girls with giant heart pancakes, homemade strawberry sauce, chocolate sauce and whip cream.  We ended the day with good ol’ American style burritos (refried beans, tortillas I made from scratch, and Tillamook medium cheddar from our friend Robert).  It was the cheese that made the burritos!  I decided to surprise the girls with hot chocolate and churros like we had in Spain.  It went pretty well, but my improvising on the churros started out badly, the size of dough tubes were too large and trapped to much water which eventually exploded and sent hot oil all over the kitchen and Tony and I.  Even with our fast reflexes I ended up with 2 burns on my face, one on my ear and neck.  It has been a couple of weeks and I’m glad to report the burns are completely healed and the scarring I believe will go away in time.  I even managed to save our two shirts and one pair of jeans that were completely splattered in oil.  The holiday was great except I didn’t care for experiencing the new meaning to “burnin’ love”!

The best part of V-Day was Rylie’s love notes she wrote on the board.  One of the notes said, “V-day is the time to love each other. You don't have to pick someone to love, you're supposed to love everyone!”  Well said Rylie Anne.