February Valentine Bumblebees and class parties

For our February craft, we made "Bee Mine" bumblebees :) We also had a couple class parties the same day... it was FUN overload.

Here are some pictures from our LOVE day:

Yay for crafts, parties and TONS of candy-coated goodness... and an early bedtime because of the sugar crash :)

Hearts and toilet paper

What do those things have in common? A finished art project of course :)

I started with an empty roll of toilet paper. Then I pinched the end of the toilet paper tube, making a heart. I taped it into place.

Then I pulled out some pink, red and purple papers and paints and let my girlie go to town, stamping her hearts:

Super easy free and fun :)

Happy Valentines Day!

Valentines Cards

My kiddos had Valentine's parties on Thursday, which is why we declared Wednesday, "Valentines-card-making-Day!".

I'm an original one ;)

I saw sooo many cute homemade Valentines Day cards that I was dying to make with my kids (like this one we made!). But being 5 and 6, Jakey and Lauren know it all these days and decided they wanted boring store-bought Valentines cards. Boo.

Here they are at work:

Bet you can't tell who's is who's :)

And while they assembled and addressed their cards to their friends, I made a few homemade Valentines for a few of my bible study/Top Notch/teacher friends :)

All of our cards came out LOVEly :)

Red Velvet Puppy Chow

For a special Valentines treat, my kiddos and I whipped something up in the kitchen. Some of us worse clothes (ahem, Jake and me), one of us wore jammies (Lauren), and one in particular wore her monster costume because really, why not?!?

Anyway, we got to pouring and mixing and stirring...

and before long, our Red Velvet puppy chow was ready to go!

And just to give credit where due here's the link to this yummy recipe.

Ingredients:

5 C. Rice Chex cereal

3/4 C. white chocolate melts or chips

1/4 C. chocolate melts or chips

2 oz cream cheese, room temp

1 1/2 Tbsp. milk

1 C. Red Velvet Cake mix

1/2 C. powdered sugar

Valentines colored M&M's or other candies

Heart sprinkles for extra decoration and cute-ness

Directions:

1. Measure out Rice Chex cereal and place into a large bowl.

2. Place cake mix and powdered sugar into a large plastic bag or tupperware.

3. Melt chocolates together in the mircowave or stovetop. careful not to burn and stir until smooth.

4. Stir in cream cheese and milk (the chocolate will get thicker, but it's okay)

5. Pour chocolate over Rice Chex cereal and stir until coated.

6. Dump cereal into the bag or tupperware with powdered sugar and cake mix. Shake, shake, shake until coated.

7. Dump onto a cookie sheet and let cool.

8. Mix with extra colorful candies and serve!

NOTE: Because of the cream cheese, keep in the fridge if you won't be eating them that day. You can also omit the cream cheese all together if you wish...if you do that, you don't need the milk either!

Enjoy! We sure did :)

Valentines Day 2014

The night before Valentines Day, I sneaked around the house, putting up special little Valentines surprises...

And when the my man and kiddos awoke the next morning, we headed downstairs to open the little gifts and chocolates. While they played and celebrated a day off of school, I got to work making some special pancakes:

and then we all ate our pancakes with whipped cream and cherries. And the new TruMoo Chocolate Marshmallow milk... YUM!

(PS- what is it about my kids and their lack of clothing in pictures? I'm seeing a trend here :))

We did LOTS of fun activities during the day, including making melted crayon heart crafts, having a heart themed lunch, playing Valentine Bingo, making cupcakes and glazed Strawberry brownies, etc..

And then for dessert, we made Strawberry floats with vanilla ice cream, strawberry soda, whipped cream and cherries... a total hit for my kiddos.

Horray for the day we get to inhale sugar and love on those we love most :)

Valentines Day prep

We spent this past weekend hanging out at our casa, doing fun Valentines Day stuff (separate posts coming up). We baked, crafted, 

and decorated:

Link for directions found here

And this year we're tying a little somethin' new. We started on February 1st, and every night after the kiddos are in bed, Justin and I write one thing about each child that we love and we post it to our 'Heart Attack' wall. They have loved rushing down the stairs in the mornings to see what we have written about them. I hope it's a memory they will cherish :)

What fun things have you been doing for Valentines Day?