This past week was a very creative outlet for most of us, especially for the girls. I think every day there was something fun and relaxing to do.  Monday: I sat down with the girls in the afternoon so we could make some Valentine's cards and crafts for family members.  They had fun painting some Elmer's glue onto their thick paper, then adding pom poms and ribbon, or stamping on hearts and Valentine's shapes galore. They also had fun tearing up tissue paper and wadding it up into little blobs to glue on their paper to make a cute heart or other design.  I decided to do a ribbon craft that I found on the internet. I already had a lot of miscellaneous Valentine's ribbon supplies in my craft cupboard downstairs, so I didn't need to buy anything at all for the project. That's always nice! Tuesday: Amber planned the most delightful and fun Spa Day for herself and the girls. It lasted the entire day! She kicked things off with a lovely scented bath using a bath bomb

To start off the week strong, I worked hard to clean up and re-organize my food storage room. Scott and I have purchased many #10 cans of various dehydrated foods over the years, starting when we were somewhat newly married. We purchased a year's worth of food storage from a company and have hauled it all around with us for about 25 years. (We've been married for 28) As we have purchased more and more #10 cans in recent years, it has caused us to wonder about the freshness and safety of some of the older cans. So, we decided to try a couple of experiments this week by cracking open some cans and sampling the contents. We had to be very brave. First Experiment: Powdered Milk Abby was a little bored, so I offered to pay her if she would work hard and help me with the cans of powdered milk. She helped haul the cans up one at a time from the storage room to the kitchen, lugging about 9 cans in all. (I had counted 11 earlier, but couldn't find the other 2. Eventually I found the