It can be done! and Valentine's Day

Finley had chocolate covered strawberries for breakfast this morning.

Valentine's Day and its chocolate aftermath are definitely her new favorite thing. As per usual, Seth spoiled us, and we'll be dining on Godiva and smelling roses for weeks. Princess Finley is fine with that.

Ford doesn't seem to be a chocolate guy (must get that from his Dad) but he'll take all the ambivalent holiday-inspired hugs from his favorite person he can get.

Valentine's Day capped off an exciting long weekend for Finley and Ford. Seth had yet another AOC exercise and I had no interest in getting blizzard-ed in with the kids on my own, so I frontloaded papers last week and we dug out of the snowdrifts and headed to North Carolina to see friends. A Very Committed Traveler, I've been interested to see whether solo air travel with twounderthree is possible, and this seemed like a nice, short trip for a trial run.

Of course, when you count drives to and from airports and parking shuttles and rental cars and security lines, a 75 minute flight turns out to be neither nice nor short. But the kids were troopers (especially Angel Ford, who slept on the plane both ways)

the new stroller we had purchased for the occasion was a hit

and the hangout time was worth every second.

Going to NC always feels like going home, and Finley l-o-v-e-s the Hudspeth house, where she gets to hang out with big girls and wear princess dresses and ride motorized cars and gorge herself on corndogs and fried food.

And all of us were ecstatic about the spring-like weather. 

The warm weather escape was much needed on the heels of a cold and snowy week on Stony Lonesome. (Wednesday's snow day led to a serious case of cabin fever, forcing me to eventually flee to Finley's friend Cora's house. Where she did- no kidding- "Frozen" karaoke.)

Some other favorites of the week are of the joyous reunion with Dad.

Finley's first ride on a big girl bike (with a little help from "her" Maggie),

and handsome Ford, who has continued to pretend he can't chew, devouring a potato wedge he scavenged. 

 Oh, and these two. Me really nailing it, with both kids napping on the plane on the way home,

and this one Jenn snapped at the park. It was so nice to be able to play outside without 85 layers on, and made us hopeful that spring will eventually come to our mountaintop!