Tootsie Pop Love!

I know...I'm squeezing this post in at the last hour since Valentine's Day is tomorrow! But my good friend Katie showed me this blog post and I LOVED the idea! You may remember from previous posts, I am not a huge fan of Valentine's Day so I'm not going to break the bank and my back for school parties. So when I saw this I knew I had to do it! So simple!

1. Snap a pic of the little guy holding his arm out (I told him to hold an imaginary balloon.)

2. Use Photoshop or a site like Picnik.com and add your text.
3. Print at the drugstore.
4. Get out your exacto and make slits for the lollipop.

And your kid is ready for the party!

Love it!

Happy Love Day!

What About Love

Name the band and you'll know what today's post is about:

HEART...of course!



My Sugar has worn this HEART hair-do the last two years around Valentine's day and it's the one hair-do that she gets stopped by the yard duties, teachers and other parents. It's darling and it's easy. Here we go:

Start with a small pony. I like to use the little elastics.





Right on top of the pony, you're going to split it into two with your finger.





You're then going to take the pony through the hole. You're going to take it under so the pony ends up coming out the top. I think it's easiest if the hair is slightly damp.




You'll then split the pony into two. Once again, it's helpful if the hair is damp. I then start with one side and twist it. Have 5 small clippies ready to form it into the heart shape. I twist and put a clip at the top. I then twist a little more and put a clip in the middle of the side. Then I go to the next side to do that half.




I then finish off the heart at the bottom. Here I pulled her hair into one pony.

I've done it in the past where I do two ponies (with a side part on top for the heart).

I found this cute hairstyle a few years ago on a hair blog that I LOVED! I was so sad when she decided to stop blogging. She had the cutest hair styles and great tutorials. Luckily she has kept the blog active so YOU can now go and partake of her goodness. I'll link you to all of her HEART hair styles right HERE.

Before she quit blogging, she was blogging buddies with this momma stylist. If you haven't stumbled across her blog before, you probably aren't a mother of a Princess. Her link is HERE and she has amazing styles.

My friend used one of her HEART styles on her girls at church yesterday. You can see their darling do's HERE.

HAPPY HEARTS DAY! (That's for you Noreen! - I love ya!)

Nordstrom Knock-Off

Last week Melissa talked about how she hated Valentine's Day. Melissa - I can still remember the Valentine's Days of college when we'd dress in black and watch women power movies like....Thelma and Louise (was that really Brad Pitt) or watch Steel Magnolia's and cry and hug and tell each other that we didn't need boyfriends because we had each other. And truth be told, we were more fun...that's why all the "dating" roommates dreaded their dates because we were going to do something fun in their absence. (It's 18 years later and we're still all friends...where are you now Cold-Sore Curt?)

Anyway, at that time I thought I hated Valentine's Day because I didn't have a boyfriend...but that's not the case...I now have a very cute, loving husband and I still don't much love Valentine's Day. Restaurants are booked, babysitters are taken, we feel forced to look lovingly in each other's eyes when, really, we both want to watch the game on the T.V.'s above. [Although, Valentine's Day is perfect for giving each other the things we bought right after Christmas at the sales, but couldn't justify spending money on ourselves. I think that's really why Valentine's Day was invented.]

So in honor of Melissa, I decided NOT to do a Valentine's Day themed post. (Deb's all about Valentine's Day...guess who always had dates in college!)  I guess this can be a Valentine's post if you are going to make this fabulous gift for a friend.

DISCLAIMER: If your name is Lisa and I'm going to your birthday party tonight...don't read on because I'm about to reveal your present.

I was looking for something cool to make my friend for her birthday and I stumbled upon a fabulous tutorial from a fabulous blog.  Here it is!

Basically she recreated a $595 necklace from Nordstrom for less than $20.  Uh...that wasn't a typo...a $595 necklace and there are no real gold, real silver, real pearl parts.

Because she gave such a great tutorial, I didn't document my every step. But I decided to make this necklace instead:

Here's the link to the necklace (click here)

But here's a screen shot in case they don't sell that necklace anymore. CLICK the PIC to see it bigger.

I only had 15 min in Joann's yesterday because I was in a hurry for an appointment. They didn't have everything I really wanted (like a dark chain and glass pearl beads) and I didn't have time to go to any other stores, so I settled on a longer silvery chain and crystals. And this is how it turned out. [Thanks to my friends Elita for modeling & Hazel for photographing.]

FYI, I singed the edges of the blue fake silk to make sure they didn't fray.

Hopefully she likes it! I saved $585 by making this by myself. Maybe I can use that money I saved to get my husband a Valentine's Gift....oh wait, I already have a few things for him.

Please Leave Us a Message...

Tomorrow is February and that's one of my most favorite months!

It may or may not have something to do with a birthday, but throw in Valentine's Day and there's nothing but LOVE.

And once you become a parent, Valentine's Day seems to be focused on your kids. And that's what we're beginning today.

We're making a message center:


A few weeks ago, I ordered these mailboxes from Oriental Trading for *cough, cough* $3.99 a piece. I justified the price with the idea that we will re use these each year. On Saturday night I was racing against the girl locking the doors of Target to get to their pharmacy department. As I was hurrying across the store (because I got locked out of the green doors but slipped through the blue doors) I walked by the dollar section. And what did I see...these exact mailboxes for $1 a piece. So if you like, hurry to your nearest Target!

Last night, we pulled out some stickers and got to work decorating our own mailboxes.



And then I took my napkin/utensil holder and turned it into our card/pen holder. 3x5 cards fit perfectly inside the mailboxes.


Now the kids can leave messages for each other. My little 6 year old boy was busy this morning before school writing notes. And he walked in the door after school and went straight to the table. I love it! In fact he even left a message for himself: "Dear Me, I make me laugh. Love, Me" We're not worried about self-confidence over her.



It's my goal to leave a note for everyone each night before I go to bed. I figure surely this won't be too difficult to do until Valentine's Day. We will then collect all their notes, put them in an envelope and into their memory boxes. These notes will be great to look back on someday.

Simple.

Easy.

Actual Conversation Hearts

For those of you who may know me, the following fact may come as a surprise to you...I love quiet time. Most of you know me as the person who fills the air waves with constant chatter and who does everything in her power to avoid the "7 minute lull" (you know that part in a conversation where no one has anything to say?). I do enjoy quiet time when I'm by myself and/or the kids are all in bed (like right now), when I can read, or think or rest my vocal chords.

But when I'm in the presence of people, I really don't like having awkward pauses in conversation. Unfortunately, my children are the same way. They all have a story (or 14) to tell and I have to organize the conversation chaos or I'll put everyone in quiet timeout. So some of you may remember my iPod app coasters and my ideas to encourage organized family conversation (click here to remind yourself). It worked for awhile, but then they started fighting about who got which coaster. As if my kids need yet ANOTHER reason to fight.

So, this Valentines I came up with "Real Conversation Hearts." None of this Hug Me, Be Mine mumbo jumbo...I mean how does that start a conversation?

Heart: Hug me.
Person: Okay.

Nice conversation.

Heart: Be Mine.
Person: Okay or No (in which a bad conversation will start)

So I cut out paper hearts and put real conversation starters on the back. Here are a few:

If you could meet anyone in the world who would it be and why?
If you could only eat one kind of food for the rest of your life, what kind of food would it be and why?
If dogs could talk, in which ways would the world be different?
If you could choose one talent that you could have and you'd be the best in world, what would it be and why?
Try to convince the family to go on your dream vacation this summer.
Describe the person on your left in 27 words.

You get the idea. I came up with a lot of story prompts in my post for a cheap quiet book (click here to remember). I used them for my conversation hearts since conversing is different than writing.

And since texting is the preferred method of communication among our youth, I think they are missing out on the art of conversation. Hopefully this can help.

Also, to add a little Va-Voom to my kids lunch, during Valentine's season, I use a cookie cutter to cut their sandwiches into hearts.

It makes it a little more exciting for them. Maybe I'll get one of those food markers and write Hug Me and Be Mine on their sandwiches.....hmmmm.

Roll the Dice

I'm betting on my family today...

With Valentine's, comes Love.

With Love, comes my Family.

So tonight's Family activity will be focusing on loving each other with these two:


For the game, we'll sit in a circle and everybody takes turn rolling the dice.

One dice has things to do. Ours say: Blow a Kiss, Hug, Compliment, Handshake (I made up a fun handshake sequence we'll use), Chest Bump (a family favorite that gets everyone laughing), and Wish (which it helps to be specific when you tell them to say something you "wish" for that person so that your son doesn't say, "I WISH that she'd brush her teeth so her breath doesn't smell" - yes he said that while playing with this last night).

The other dice has pictures of each of us. That is the person who will receive the action you roll.

When we've played this game in the past, we've let the turns go around the circle several times until we've hit an obvious "time to stop now" moment. But the kids have always loved doing this.

When we've done this before, we just used a regular dice and I've typed up who is what action is what number (i.e. one = hug, two = compliment and one = mom, two = dad, etc.).

For tonight, I'd thought I'd make our own dice. So I gathered these items:

(Can you see my Spice Cookie trying to get into the picture?)

* Wood Blocks
* Pictures for each person in the family
* Pencil
* Scissors
* Sayings/Actions
* Mod Podge
* brush

Because my blocks were so small (they're just a little bigger than 1 inch), I just placed my block over the picture and traced the square around each person and action. Then I cut with scissors.



I then brushed my mod podge on the block, placed my picture on, then brushed more mod podge on. I didn't want to have to deal with corners matching up, so I cute my squares to be just a little bit smaller than the block. So you can see the edge of the blocks.

As soon as they were dry, my kids started playing. They love this. And it does help us to focus more on each other instead of a typical game where we're trying to beat each other...because I may or may not be competitive with my kids when we play games.