Valentine's 2014: School Edition

In an effort to play catch up, Valentine's Day is next on the agenda :)  The day before Valentine's Day was a school day, so of course the kids had parties and took all the goodies to school. 

 

Jack took the squeezy applesauces to school with a sticker that said "Valentine, you're my main squeeze!" on it.  Thank you Pinterest!!  And then I found little candles at Bath & Body Works and grabbed some of those for the kids' teachers gifts along with a note that said "Thanks for lighting up my life!"...the candles were just the perfect size for a Valentine's goody for the teachers!

And then Katie took a squeeze it (there may have been a couple extras and I may have consumed all of them in about 48 hours while reminiscing of when I was little) in a bag with hugs/kisses and a note that said "some hugs and a squeeze...be my valentine please!" - and then she signed her name on all of them!

And this was Katie's outfit for her Valentine's party at school - I know I am partial, but good gracious she looked so cute! HA!

Love this picture!  I love that angle - her sitting down and looking up at me and the camera!

And then it was party time later in her school day!  And Daddy was able to come too! Katie was SO excited that he was actually able to make!

And here is Katie with one of her best buddies - they have been in the same class every year so far and will go to the same school for kindergarten!!

Such a silly girl!

And on the way to the car, we managed a picture with another buddy of hers!  These girls love to play together after school - and the little brothers are good friends too!  So fun!

She had a great day at school celebrating - and then we got to celebrate at home the next day!  Stay tuned for that post to come!  And have a super weekend!

 

Craft Time

About a week and a half ago, we decided to stay home in our jammies and do lots of art!  Baby Jack was snoozing on a blanket on the floor and it was really nice to have time with just my girl!

 I had been planning this activity for probably three months, and we finally did it!  We read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and then did some tissue paper art!  I found some clip art of fish and printed them out so that Katie could use a glue stick and torn up tissue paper to decorate them.  She loved it!  We will definitely be doing tissue paper art again soon!

 Next, we got out a stamp and paper kit and she had a blast putting stamps and stickers on papers.  She decided she wanted to make a bunch and send them to the grandparents, so when she was ready, she put them in cards and helped sign her name!  Then she cleaned up and wanted to do some painting.  I bought actual watercolor paper a while back (thank goodness).  When she paints, she always has a really wet brush, which tears regular printer paper up.  The watercolor paper is thick enough that it absorbs it and does great! And since it is kind of expensive, I cut the sheets into quarters to make it last longer.

Towards the end, Baby Jack woke up and was happy as could be!  I bet he will love doing art too (just maybe not with princess stamps and stickers)!

Homemade Heart Crayon Tutorial

I mentioned in a few posts that we made heart-shaped crayons for Katie's classmates for Valentine's Day!  I got the original idea from Pinterest (of course)!  I had planned to get a cute card made with something like "You color my world" or something like that, but it didn't happen.  So Hello Kitty, it was. 

Anyways, I used cheapy crayons so that it was easy to get the paper off (it slid right off).  I also used little bits of crayons that had broken and all of that - all kids love to break crayons and peel the paper off, right?  So you probably have a lot of the bits and pieces, and the kiddos can help peel the paper off too!  So here is the bag of crayons.  Doesn't it look neat and colorful?

I then took a soft hammer (rubbery) to the bag to break it into teeny pieces.  Here is the after-the-beating picture of the crayons! 

 I had gotten some heart shaped ice cube trays from the dollar bin at Target (I think), so I loaded the up with the crayon bits.  One thing I forgot to do was grease each opening to make the crayons easier to get out.  I do recommend that.

 I baked them in the oven at 225 for about 15 minutes.  I recommend just staying close and keeping an eye on them.  Maybe set it for 10 minutes first and go from there.  Here they are in the oven.  Clearly I put the trays on a cookie sheet to keep them level.

 I baked them until it was liquid-y and all melted.

 And then I took them out of the oven and let them cool off all the way.  I even put them in the freezer for a little while to help them cool off more quickly!  It would have been easier to pop them out of the molds had I sprayed them down, so definitely do that :)  Just in case, you may want to use molds/trays that you don't mind tossing...ya know, just in case!

And you're done!  I think I am going to do something similar as part of the goodies for Katie's 3rd birthday party!  Have fun making your own!  The sky is the limit as far as shapes go!!