Our Valentines weekend

Will and I decided long ago that we were not going to have any expectations when it comes to Valentines Day. We both feel that there is far too much pressure and large expectations on that one day. Love should be shown throughout the year! However, my girls and I do love all the hearts and stuff. So I every year we have a family dinner with fun decorations. This year was pretty low key since Anika is still not feeling back to normal. We still had a wonderful evening. Mimi joined us for dinner and the girls got to open a huge package from Grandpa Dave and Gretchen. They had a blast with all their fun treats.

Earlier that day we took the girls to the zoo. Anika was cracking me up. Will was carrying her on his shoulders and she was gripping onto his ear to hold on. Are daddy's ears that big?...He was in pain...which was not so funny. But daddy was getting lots of Valentine love from Anika :)

Sunday afternoon we needed to get outside. We headed down to the canyon near our backyard. It started out a little rough when Will decided he WAS going to cross the creek (while holding Anika in the backpack and Caylin in his arms). I decided I did not want to get wet, it was freezing! I also did not want the girls to get wet, again, it was freezing and they were still not over their colds. I simply wanted to take a nice hike through the canyon. But it just wouldn't be like us Barley's to not throw in a little "adventure". Anyway, all was well, and we did end up just taking a nice stroll after all.

Caylin decided she was going to play in the mud. She dug up a mud pie and carried it around like it was her baby. She sang to it and rocked it. Anika just hung out in the backpack watched everything from there. Aiana decided she wanted to skip the canyon and ride bikes with her friends. :)

A miss and a not miss:

Every morning I get up with Anika at about 6:30am. We have a nice quiet intimate time before the rest of the household is awake. Soon after a puffy face, fuzzy headed little girl joins us. If she was sleeping upstairs, I see her big eyes peaking through the stairs. Later Aiana joins us. Anika gets very excited when Aiana wakes up. She squeals when she sees her (Aiana would not be very happy if I put her morning face photo up) :). I'm going to miss these intimate moments.

I will not miss getting up before the sun is up!