Groundhog Day

I know its way past Groundhog day, but due to crazy snow days, this artwork just got sent home with Lucas. I don't feature much school art on here. Not that it isn't all cute, but I could never display it all and I have not yet figured out how to deal with the massive amounts of it we receive...do I keep everything? Unless I want to get a storage unit, I think not. So I've been filtering out the non-essential stuff and only keeping stuff I find really precious. But even this pile is pretty big (because my kid is Picasso? Er, no. Because I'm a sentimental pack rat? Most likely!) I think most of it will go into a separate tub for each child, and when the leave home I can "gift" it to them and they can take a walk down memory lane and review it all and then do what they like with it. But my absolute favorite pieces are being photographed or scanned into the computer and I am putting them in their school albums.

This groundhog is one of my favorites. I know it is simple and didn't involve a whole lot of creativity on my child's part (he was probably just told where to paste everything) but I think it is SOOO cute. I love his heart ears and nose and his big old teeth (is he a groundhog or a beaver??) But most of all, I love that he has a shadow that you can spin out...just like the real groundhog. Such a cute idea. And this was the first year that Lucas was really excited about Groundhog's day--we watched the news and saw the real dude come out and see his own shadow, which was pretty fun. It's always a blast to see your children so excited about something for the first time!

The good and the bad...

I'm always posting about the wonderful things going on in our lives...thought I would feature this "fun" little letter we got in Luc's backpack this week. In case you have trouble reading his handwriting, it says "Mommy and Daddy, I did not make good choices in music today. I am sorry Lucas"

Apparently he and four other boys from his class all "drank the koolaid" and decided to run up and down the bleachers (very dangerous) and then talk back to the music teacher. Lucas had to write both the music teacher and his parents a note of apology. Sigh. I wish I could say he learned his lesson, but when I tried to discuss the incident with Lucas he claimed the teacher had instructed them to march around the room to the song and that they WERE marching...just up and down the bleachers. But in his mind, they were following directions. He is getting very creative in his excuses...

Crossing my fingers that this is the LAST of the snow pictures!!

Please, please, let us be done with cold winter weather. I am all snowed out. These are some fun shots from the last round of snowfall--all total I think we got about seven inches in our area. It was really pretty coming down and snowed most of the day. Hallie enjoyed romping in it--she even got very frisky and enjoyed chasing us around for a while before she remembered she is an old doggy and started begging to go inside and warm her paws.

The neighborhood teenagers were really into sledding--they were at it ALL day and into the evening hours.
I tried something new this time and gave the kids some squirt bottles full of colored water to make fun designs in the snow. This was the finished product:
Here Lucas is squirting away. He had fun doing this, but it was over way to quickly. Alex wasn't even interested at all.

Josh and Lucas thought it would be fun to bury Lucas in the snow...I think this trick works way better on sunny beaches with sand. Lucas was practically a ball of ice after this stunt.
Alex had a few moments of fun in the snow, but overall, he still isn't loving it. Maybe by next year.

Spreading the love...

I wanted to make Valentine's Day special, but not blow the budget this year, so I kept it simple. For breakfast, the boys were treated to the plate above, which was just yogurt with cherries in the shape of the heart. They both loved it. To get their Valentine's present from us, they had to go on a hunt to "find the trail of kisses and follow it" which Lucas loved. Alex was just excited he got to eat candy. Another fine idea from Family Fun!! I forgot to post these in my Vday crafts post, but I made these for the boys at a recent Stampin' Up party I went to. Again, these cards had candy on them, so the boys loved them.
Both boys had parties at school. Lucas came home with this adorable Valentine's Day bag--this was where his classmates put all his cards. So cute! I love how the kids names were all on the hearts attached to the frogs tongue!
Lucas and I made cupcakes for dinner.
And to top it all off--a special heart for the boys for their meal. They love both hot dogs and cheese, so this was a big hit. And it took less than five minutes to prepare.
It was a great Valentine's Day. Alex was so happy with his gift (A big heart balloon) he was jumping up and down with joy. And Lucas very sweetly told me thank you for all his great gifts when I was tucking him into bed. He really can be so good sometimes. ;)

Valentine's Day Crafts

Being a stay at home mom has really given me more freedom to be creative and craft things with my children, something I have always WANTED to do. Arts and crafts were some of my favorite activities as a child (along with reading) and its fun to watch my kids enjoy crafting, too. For Luc's school Valentine's party, I decided to create a virtually free present for his teachers. Two weeks before the party, I sent a letter home to all parents--enclosed were two hearts I had cut out on my Cricut. I asked each parent to do some "homework" and talk to their child and find out what they loved about their teachers and write this on the hearts. Then the children were free to sign the hearts and decorate them however they wanted. This was all supposed to be a surprise for the teachers, so the parents were asked to put the hearts in a sealed envelope and return it to me. I got pretty decent participation (although not 100%, which always makes me sad...clearly those parents are not very invested in their children) and then bought a jar at hobby lobby (got it half off, although I could have gone super cheap and used a big pickle jar) and decorated it and labeled it the "Jar of Joy." I added a few pieces of candy and a letter explaining that whenever the teachers needed a pick me up, just open the jar of joy, pull out a heart, and read something nice about themselves. I think it turned out pretty cute and the teachers seemed really touched.

Lucas and I also had a lot of snow day time on our hands recently, so we hand made his Valentine's cards. Again, I used my Cricut and stole and idea from my friend Veronica. Her daughter makes a different animal out of hearts each year. I settled on the easy butterfly for our activity. Lucas painted the Popsicle sticks, added the pipe cleaners for antennas, and signed his name. Due to complications with glue dots (not recommended for impatient toddlers!!) I had to glue on all the squiggly eyes. The boys all got cards that read "You are so fly!" and the girls got cards that read "You make my heart flutter."

Our final Vday craft was for a cookie exchange at Leigh's. This was fun and super simple--and it used up left over candy canes from Christmas, so I will probably be doing this again--it would make good treats for the holidays, as well. You simply take two candy canes and pop them in the oven for about ten minutes--just long enough to get them slightly melted. Then you immediately put a lollipop stick at the base and pinch it to seal it together (the dried REALLY fast, so you must work quickly!) Then you can use melted chocolate to spread in the middle--I used white chocolate and then added fun red sprinkles, but you could do variations--dark chocolate, milk chocolate, assorted nuts, sprinkles, crushed peppermints, candy, or dried fruit--anything could go in the middle. Then just let them set, wrap, and they are ready to go! I got this idea from Family Fun magazine, and have also seen it on one of the blogs I stalk.

A Zoom Zoom Birthday Bash

My good friend Larona's cute little son Mason turned three this month, and she asked me to plan his party for her. I had a blast with the theme--he loves cars, trucks, and anything that "zooms" so I planned everything around automobiles. I made a banner for the bar--you can't really tell so well from this picture, but each section of the banner had wheels on the bottom.
We had a variety of games or activities--mostly free or very inexpensive. This was the "car and truck play station" where I put out a bucket full of Mason's favorite vehicles and a cute road rug that I already owned.
I chose primary colors for the theme and used digital scrapbooking materials and Photoshop to put together all the printables for the party--including the circles for the hats and the cupcake picks. They had cute transportation words like "zoom," "crash," and "beep." For the cupcake picks, I added bright ribbons. Larona got the cupcakes at Wal-Mart and just instructed them to put them in plain wrappers and do yellow icing. As a bonus, the bakery forgot to make her cupcakes, so when she showed up, she got them for FREE. So that was one less expense for the party!
I used a cupcake stand that I owned and tucked some of Mason's cars and trucks in between the desserts. My favorite part of this display was that I put the whole stand on top of a real car tire (which I got for FREE). I thought it looked really cute and fit the theme perfectly.
Another game for the kids was the pinata. I re-purpused an old pinata that I had used at Alex's Sesame Street birthday party--I simply covered the old theme with new paper that matched our car theme, added a few cars and viola--free pinata! (And to top it off--I originally bought it at a garage sale for $2!!) For candy bags for the pinata candy, I used lunch paper bags and ran some of Luc's cars through colored paint and made tire tracks in random pattern on the bags. The beating stick was actually the stick from a plunger (don't worry--it was brand new!) and I just put some of the theme colored ribbons on it to dress it up.
We had the party at the clubhouse of one of Larona's friends, so we used the bar to set up all the food. I put a sign on the bar that read "Fuel Station"
Here was a coloring station on one of the table with free printables of cars and trucks that I found online:

Each table had a colored tablecloth and a street "runner" down the middle that I made by taking a black tablecloth and cutting it into street shapes. I added the stripe down the middle by using inexpensive crepe paper. The road signs and trucks on the runners were my present to the birthday boy--a cute little kit I found at Micheal's crafts (Melissa and Doug toy--LOVE their stuff!)


I also did party favors--each child got a bag with a car and a car craft, and an additional bag that said "Mason's Zoom Zoom Bingo" and came with instructions. I found a car bingo game online and duplicated it in photoshop--so easy and so cute. Each bag had four cards in it, so on a long road trip you could give your children each a card and a marker and when they saw a certain vehicle (car, tractor, motorcycle, etc) they "X" it off and whoever gets four in a row first wins.
This picture is blurry, but I put the favors by the door inside another tire I got for free. I put a note on top that read "Thanks for coming to my birthday bash...now zoom zoom on home and take a party favor with you!"
Another game we had was this:
Again, I created this very easily--just posterboard and paper. Finally, I had custom labels for the drinks too. The kids juice boxes read "Chugga Chugga" and the waters read "Fuel up for Mason's Birthday bash!" I love personalizing everything and all it cost me was the paper it was printed on!
Overall a really fun theme. I had a blast doing it. I wish I could plan parties every day!

Moving

Despite the Snowmaggedon that we have had here in Little Rock, we are mostly moved to our new house. And overall, it has been a great move. I am SOOO happy to have more space. I now have so much space, I don't have nearly enough stuff to fill it with, which is FINE BY ME!! The house feels so much less cluttered, and will feel even better once I get the kids rooms organized and put up decorative things. It will be a bit of a slow process, though. We need new furniture in several rooms (ours is seriously outdated and kid-abused!) and it will be fun to decorate.

Things I particularly love about the new house--

the view and the neighborhood. I never knew how much I would LOVE living this far out west, but I do love it. We are just minutes from Alex's school and my morning "commute" to drop the kids off has almost been cut in half! We are also really enjoying being so close to the Wal-mart super center (although, I admit--I wish it were a Target super center since I hate giving my money to Wal-mart). I can zip in and out and be home in under five minutes which is AWESOME! We have discovered a whole bunch of restaurants close to the house that are (for now) new and different. And we have a wonderful view of Chenal Mountain from our backyard...it made me laugh because the agent said it was a beautiful view of Pinnacle Mountain. Uh, no, that mountain is NOT the one behind our house. But it's still a very nice view. It has cell phone towers on it that "twinkle" at night and Lucas loves it. I kinda dig it, too. Below--Chenal Mountain--NOT Pinnacle ;)
The kids have really settled in to the new house very well. Everyone is enjoying having their own room and I am loving that my bedroom is no longer a baby nursery! Win for everyone! The kids had a blast with all the packing boxes (as witnessed below). Alex and Chloe are too young to really be disturbed by a new place, but Lucas is old enough and he did have a few anxieties before the big move. He would sit there and ask me if each and every one of his toys was going to the new house. This got old after a while.

Lucas: Mommy, are we taking blue mat?

Me: Yes. We are taking everything.

Lucas: Are we taking my Legos?

Me: Yep. Every single toy is going.

Lucas: What about my clothes?

Me: Clothes too. There will be nothing left in this house. We are taking every bit of this to the new house.

Lucas: Even the balls? And the firetruck? And the Transformers? And my games?

Me: YES!! EVERY THING.

Lucas: Mommy, are we taking my books?

Me: Oh my gosh. Just stab me now!!!
It was sweet and cute (and a bit annoying) that he was so concerned for everything. Once we made the big move and I brought him over to "visit" his toys he was much relieved. Now I think most of the moving anxiety is over. The only residual issue we have is that this house is so much larger and Lucas wants to CONSTANTLY know where I am...so if I leave his sight for more than a minute or two, he starts yelling my name until I answer. I know this will fade with time as he becomes more comfortable in our new digs.