Valentines Day is a big deal at our house. I love this holiday and it has become a fun family day for us. True to our tradition, we had our annual, candlelight, heart shaped pizza dinner. And as always, my boys surprised me with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. (For the record, Brett joined in the fun with us. Not sure why he didn't make it into any of the photos.)
Valentines day is one of my FAVORITE holidays. It's pink and fluffy and all about hearts and love. A girly girl day, but who says boys can't love it too. I think that my boys do....or they do a good job humoring their mother. We had our annual Valentines dinner. Heart shaped pizza on Valentines plates by candlelight. This year I made the boys each a robot Valentine. They each had a custom robot drawn and colored just for them. Cameron was most impressed with my efforts. He said Mom! You sharpied and colored these just for us?! It's the little things! Brett and the boys got me a lovely bouquet of flowers that always becomes our centerpiece for the evening and brings me joy! Grandma and Grandpa M always send the boys a fun Valentines package in the mail and this year was so fun for us to scatter the Valentines goodies all over the table to add to the fun, festive decor for our special dinner. After a yummy dinner, we played UNO as a family. What a fun night. Now the countdown begins to my other favorite thing about February....Me day! Love that!
My helper:
The boys:
The girl with her boys:
Happy Valentines (or Valentimes as Austin calls it) day!
Tonight Austin, Ethan and I were sitting at the dinner table chatting. Our conversation went something like this.
Mom: Ethan did you learn about Jesus today in nursery?
Ethan: (shaking head yes) mmm...hmmm
Austin: I learned about Jesus today too.
Mom: You did? What did you learn?
Austin: When Jesus died there was an earthquake.
Mom: That's right. Why do we celebrate Easter?
Austin: So we can be happy.
Mom: Yep, and we celebrate Easter because Jesus was resurrected, do you know what that means?
Austin: Yep, it means that he came back to life.
Mom: That's right, his body and spirit were reunited and someday after we die we will be resurrected too.
Austin: Is Jesus alive?
Mom: Yes, Jesus is alive. He lives in heaven with Heavenly Father and someday he will come to the earth again
Austin: Will I see him?
Mom: Yes, that is why we have to try hard to do right things and do what our Heavenly Father wants us to do.
Austin: When I see him, I will give him an Austin hug! (that's what we call Big, Bear Hugs from Austin)
Mom: He will love that Austin!
How tender, sweet, innocent and loving children are. No wonder our savior says "suffer the little children to come unto me" Their faith is pure and their love is unconditional. When I experience these sweet moments with my children like this, it helps me to better understand this scripture:
And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.
3 Nephi 11:38
The tradition:
The dinner:
The Family night activity:
Since Family Home Evening fell on Valentines Day, we had a lesson on love. I hid hearts all over the family room and the boys had to go on a heart hunt. Then for each heart that they found, they had to list a way that they could show love for others or list a way that the Savior shows love or showed love to those he served throughout his life.
Then, Brett and I played 20 questions with the boys and they had to guess where their Valentines were hidden. They guessed it with only 4 questions left and each boy received a Lego set from Mom and Dad.
The flowers for the girl:
The first bunch you can see in the pictures above, however, they died the next day so they were returned for a new bunch!
Notice Austin's Lego set on display next to my flowers...CuTe!
The GIANT Hershey's kiss for the man:
Brett has often said that he always wanted one of these when he was a kid and never got one, so I couldn't resist!
The Valentine's thief:
I heard a little voice saying mmmmm... and I came around the corner to find Ethan on the floor raiding his brother's Valentine bag of goodies. Doesn't he look happy?!
The Valentines decor that I managed to complete prior to one of my favorite holidays:
Did I mention just how much I LOVE the month of FEBRUARY! Who doesn't love a pink month? Not to mention I kind of feel like it's my month...let the countdown begin to Melanie day (or Melanie week as Brett likes to call it)! I love my birthday!
I am trying hard to craft using "things" that I've accumulated over the years instead of buying more to add to my ever expanding stash. So as you may have noticed the last few crafts were created with supplies that I just had lying around begging to be put to use. Here is one more Spring decor project created (partially) from my "stash"
Items from my stash:
Wood, pinwheel flowers. I finally got around to painting these. (I've literally had these lying around for years)
Ribbon
Bits of greenery (that I almost gave to D.I.)
Now I have to confess, I did buy a few things from the dollar store to help me complete this project...
The cute planter tin
The cute birdhouse (lots of cute styles for you to paint)
The moss
The craft foam.
So here is my challenge...go create something fabulous from your stash and if you feel like sharing, put a link to it in my comment section. If you're anything like me, I know you have a stash of craft items just waiting to be used to create something amazing!
Up next...a spring quilted runner using fabric from my stash. Wish me luck!
Friday was a good day! The boys came home from school and went upstairs to play. It was quiet (an unusual phenomenon at our house), the house was clean and I was ready to work on a little project. So I turned on Pandora(*If you haven't checked this out, you should...I love it!) I set my station to play some Jim Brickman and I got busy. First I cut my wood from some scrap board we had in the garage. (Yep, that's right I cut my own wood with the jigsaw that Brett bought me 10+ years ago and this was the first time I've used it. Don't tell him I cut my own wood though or he may not be so willing to help me out next time). Next I sanded, painted and distressed each block...looking cute already, but there was more. I dug out my chipboard letters from my scrapbooking stash and some cute, spring paper. I traced and cut each letter from the paper, then I mod podged a chipboard letter onto each block, applied another coat of mod podge and adhered the paper, when that dried I applied one more coat to make sure that it was really adhered...looking much cuter. Finally (and the funnest part of all) I was ready to decorate them. I found some cute ribbon, my craft wire, a large daisy and a wooden flower pot and birdhouse (which I painted) and this is how it looks all put together.
Happy Spring!
On a side note, Brett came home and saw me in all my glory sitting at the table with my music on crafting away while the boys were off playing rather peacefully together and he said "Wow! You are in the zone...all you need now is a bubble bath and candles and you'd be set!" "Don't forget the chocolate I added" Aaaah, it was a great day!
Our day of love...
Heart cinnamon rolls for breakfast:
Flowers for Mom
A heart shaped pizza for our candlelight dinner
Valentines from Mom and Dad (or at least what's left of them) The boys devoured them while watching a movie Sunday night camp-out style.
And last but not least after 2 years (Brett says 3) I finally finished Brett's PJ pants that were supposed to be for Christmas...so the Christmas present became the Valentines gift! Works for me!
Hope that you had a wonderful Valentines day too!
Here's an idea for a quick, easy and inexpensive Valentines gift.
Gather your supplies. You will need a candle (in a jar), rub-on letters, stickers, and ribbon. I bought my candles at Wal-mart for $1.00/ea.
Remove the label from the candle and apply the rub-on letters and stickers.
Tie a cute ribbon around the neck of the jar. You could also tie a cute tag on with the ribbon if you wanted to.
That's it! Now you have a cute little gift to give to a teacher, a friend or even the ladies that you visit teach!
