Happy Valentine's Day!

Here's Stephen, showing how we're celebrating our Valentine's Day here... with some Nutella on crackers (oh wow I wish we hadn't found out about that... we're already on our 2nd huge tub of it!) and a yummy Cream Cheese Italian chicken dinner in our new crock pot... it finally came in! (We had to order it because they're not common here).

This morning was our first 'hard to go to school' morning for Kas. She woke up and wanted very badly to stay home for Valentines Day, although it turned out that she just simply wanted to stay home -- that school is hard and everyone speaks French and she couldn't do it today. Poor baby -- after lots of tears and hugs and loves, and a sweet prayer from Kenny that "Kassie would have fun today", Daron drove her to school, and walked her in and hung out there while Kassie's cute Irish friend Maureen chatted with them. Kas immediately perked up and seemed happy to go in. (I was so glad to hear that news, since it was really rough getting her out the door - amidst her "Oh the horror! The horror! It's like kidnapping! You're kidnapping me! I won't step one foot outside this door" as I was pulling her out the door) But we knew that once she got over this one hard hump it would be better, and sure enough, she bounded off the bus at lunch very happy, especially since I baked her favorite pumpkin bread for her (and shared some with her bus driver Erik, which made him happy too).  I also called Kassie's teacher, Madame Hostettler, at 10am on their break and chatted with her - she said Kassie was great and they went through her new notebooks together, and she was playing happily with her friends -- I told her last week was great but today was hard for her to go to school and she cried, and Mm. Hostettler said - yes, she told me she had a cold and was sneezing, and that's why her face was red. (Clever little girl). So all was well.

Here they are eating Grandma Inger's chocolate Valentines she sent. Yummy!