love one another

"beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.  he that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love." i john 4:7-8

we are working on LOVE during the month of february.  so each time the girls show some sort of love to each other or to someone else, they get a heart on the chart.  at the end of the day they get candy hearts for them.  workin' like a charm!

THIS =

THIS

valentine's day math for kids

i stumbled upon this fabulous game for toddlers and pre-k kids to play on pinterest (my guilty pleasure).  i believe THIS is a link to the activity if you want to look it up (hers is of course much better...laminated and all).  they get to practice their math...i suppose you could do it with capital and lower case letters too.  that will be next week, perhaps.  not sure the kids even know they are doing "school work."  :)

valentine craft #4-repurposed frame

i saw something like this on another blog and wondered if i had the things around the house to create something similar.  this is what i came up with.

i forgot to take a before pic of the metal frame before i painted it red, so i just took a shot of the backside.  i found this frame at my mom's house in some boxes of my old stuff from college.  it is such a cool baroque looking frame, i knew i'd want to do something with it.

i spray painted the frame red

added some polka dot material and a white heart doile i found stashed away

and viola!  a cute decoration for valentine's day

i put it in the kitchen next to a red candle (from christmas) and an apothecary jar full of heart candies (which will not last long in my house, i am sure)

valentine craft #3-the garland

i cut out some hearts from card stock and had the girls help me paint them.  i added some foam heart stickers i had left over from the valentine's day cards last year.  i just taped them to some twine and hung them from the mantle.  such fun, especially because the girls helped make them.  to add some touch of whimsy, i added pink tulle to the ends of each. 

this one is my favorite because august painted it-mixed the pink and the purple together...oops!

valentine craft #2-sweet blocks

these are the latest holiday blocks...this year i decided to order vinyl letters.  MUCH easier...and i think they turned out oh-so-cute!  i got the letters from this great, easy-to-work with company called Writing on the Wall.  and the best part...they weren't expensive either.

valentine craft #1-the cupcake liner wreath

let me first say that i just love all the random holidays-like halloween and valentine's day.  i think it is related to candy and colors-orange and black and pink, red, black, purple, chocolate, candy hearts, etc.   even when i was single, i still loved all the colors and the candy hearts-not the reminders that i was single.  i heard someone at work call valentine's day "singles awareness" day.  i thought that was hilarious.  so, sorry if this offends anyone :)

i wanted to make a few crafts to decorate for the holiday.  i found this wreath at tatortots and jello (you really must check it out, but if you do, you'll see that hers is MUCH better than mine).

the finished product, hanging on the door!

materials:  foam wreath, red ribbon, cupcake liners, hot glue gun

step #1:  wrap the ribbon around the foam circle-it is actually pretty easy and i didn't have to glue it on-just at the end.  i ended up running out of ribbon, so i decided to, instead of taking another trip to michaels, just put ribbon on part and the "exposed" green part would be where i would put the cupcake liners.  the example one has the liners all the way around and it really looks good.

step #2: take the cupcake liners and bend or fold them two times.  i folded about 5 to 10 of them before gluing

step #3: glue on the liners-which sounds easy and it is...just arrange them and fluff as you go

it really goes pretty quickly if you fold enough at a time

here is little boo, modeling in front of the finished product-i have a feeling i will end up adding the liners all the way around for my next one-hmm..what's next??? st. patrick's day!  green it is!