The Search for Miss Direction: A whirlwind of valentines, mittens and cheeseburgers!

I may have been a little over ambitious today in exactly how much one should try to accomplish on any given day. I am glad to be home now, quietly writing my post recapping the craziness of today instead of doing it all over again, that's for sure. It's been a whirlwind around here!

I started my morning by getting to do one of my favorite things - go help in one of the kiddos classes! This morning I got to go and help at OLS for Mikayla's Valentine's Day party. Two and a half hours of 13 three and four year olds wound up because of the holiday and stuffed full of sugar - what a lucky girl I am :) Seriously though, I had fun. I got to be in charge of the cookie frosting table (think Mrs. Porto knows me, or what?) and it was fun to just be a part of it. Mikayla came home loaded with all kinds of valentines and chock full of energy.

Which on a normal day would have been great, but we barely had enough time to stop by home long enough to drop off her stuff and pick up her lunch when we had to dash over to a PTA Board meeting. Wrapped that up in just over an hour and it was off to another appointment on the other side of down before dashing back home in order for me to be to work this afternoon and Kayla to grab a short nap. (She needed it at this point and boy was I jealous!)

We grabbed Noah off the bus and when they got home the kiddos decided they wanted to color their Colorado map for the week. Like usual, it is better to see the picture of what they came up with than hearing me babble about it.

Just got that wrapped up, threw them in the tub for a quick bath and Grant got home just in time for our Olympic event for the day - Mitten and Glove Matching! Yep, just as simple as it sounds, but entertaining none the less. Check out the action and today's Olympic champion below.

My crew has been waiting patiently all week for tonight's dinner as I mentioned it to them on Monday when we put up the wall. It turns out that Colorado is the birthplace of the cheeseburger! Or, in order to clarify that a bit, it is the birthplace of where the cheeseburger was actually trademarked. Louis Ballast of the Humpty Dumpty Barrel Drive-In of Denver, Colorado applied for the trademark on the cheeseburger on March 5, 1935. It apparently took Mr. Ballast a while to get the perfect topping because he toyed with peanut butter and even a melted Hershey's bar before filing his cheeseburger patent. The first cheeseburger was basic with a slice of American cheese melted over it, a sweet relish, a 'secret sauce', shredded lettuce and was served on a toasted bun.

After we wrapped up dinner, Grant helped the kiddos assemble the pieces of their airplanes from last night and I helped find, cut out and put together the letters for our "We've Been There" map. You'll see that no Gatchel's have actually been to Colorado but after this week I think we're all considering a trip!

Phew - so is that enough for today? I know my head's still spinning! Looking forward to celebrating Valentine's Day with my favorite sweethearts tomorrow with lots of fun treats (you know I've been planning for weeks what to make tomorrow, right? ;-) as well as a White Scavenger Hunt as our Olympic event. So until then...

Waiting for the day to start

Playing musical hearts

Marching!

Mmmm, cookie

She had a good day :)

This is Mikayla's Colorado picture - she says to tell you it's of a cheeseburger (and after the 'tude she's copped this week, I wouldn't argue with her)

This is Noah's he drew the Denver Broncos horse symbol :)

Noah gives matching a go

Kayla's turn

Celebrating Noah's victory

Today's medalists (Noah took gold, I got the silver and Mikayla got the bronze.) The kiddos and I may have hidden a couple of Grant's gloves to make things more difficult. And I did mine with my back to the gloves to try to make it more fair.

Got to use my super cool indoor grill on tonight's burgers

Cheeseburger! (On homemade buns that were out of this world if I do say so myself :) )

I gave both kiddos the option of having their burger sans bun and they wanted none of that. It cracked me up to watch the Bean get her mouth around the whole thing. Not only did they both finish dinner tonight, but it disappeared in record time