valentine treats

So we did end up with a snow day today and with no school tomorrow, I did manage to send in a special Valentine snack with the kids yesterday and decorated some store bought cupcakes for my daughters class. 
For the children's snack I sent in an empty chocolate box (actually it was a tin) and filled it with different snacks/treats. I got this idea from an Instagram photo taken by Katherine Marie. I also saw another idea on pinterest where someone served different kinds of cheese in an empty candy box. I guess you could really fill it with anything you please. It was funny trying to peek in all of the candy boxes at the stores to find one that had the plastic liner in it. I ended up with some tin ones made by Mrs. Fields. I covered the label with a chalkboard heart sticker. I filled the inside with some red goldfish, raisins, chocolate cheerios, chocolate graham crackers and a few treats. The kids loved it!!!

My daughter's class isn't actually going to celebrate Valentine's Day until after our vacation, but since I had to go in for my son's class party I decided to bring something for my daughter's class too. Since it was sort of last minute and I already had a very busy morning, I grabbed some mini cupcakes from the grocery store and then made some tiny fortune cookies out of air heads to put on top.  My daughter's class is studying Asia so I thought it would be cute. I also found this idea through pinterest, but instead of making large fortune cookies, I used a small round cookie cutter to make tiny ones. They came out so cute! And only took a few seconds to make each one. My daughter's class was thrilled with the surprise treat at the end of the day!

We are all hunkered down here for the snow day. Hope that you all have a sweet afternoon!

valentines for friends

It's hard to believe that Valentine's Day is this Friday! The kids don't have school on Friday because it is a professional development day for the teachers and Thursday it looks like we are getting a major snowstorm here in Connecticut, so the kids school Valentine parties might be cancelled. Regardless, the children picked out the Valentines they wanted to share with their friends and I thought I would share them with you.  My daughter LOVES ice cream so when I saw these cards, I knew they would be perfect. We also found some valentine bubbles to attach to the outside of the card. My daughter used some washi tape to attach the bubbles to the card and I think they came out darling.

My son picked out a valentine with gummy worms that we saw on Pinterest. I ordered tiny paint cans and found a printable from Bloom Designs. The heart tags are from the dollar section at Target. I love how they turned out too.

This morning my children surprised me with an early valentine, they brought me breakfast (cheerios & oj) in bed! They also made a sweet valentine card that said: "Happy Valentine's Day! You always make us happy!" What I love most is that they did this all by themselves, without any prompting or help. Best gift a mom could ever ask for.

love notes

I saw this idea on a blog a few years ago and decided this year we would give it a try. The idea is to write your kids love notes every day leading up to Valentine's Day. We started on Feb. 1, but you could start any day leading up to Valentine's Day. I already had these heart shaped notebooks so I put my children's initials on the covers and every night my husband and I take turns writing something we love about each child on a page inside. The children look forward to reading their message each morning and we have fun thinking about all the different ways we love them.

home sweet home

I always decorate the inside of my house for Valentine's day, but this year I decided to decorate the outside as well! I hung a wreath that I had grabbed at target last year on the door and then thought it would be fun to hang hearts in all of the windows. To the right of the house is a white picket fence where I hung the "Be Mine" sign. I can't leave it out all of the time because it is made of metal and will rust, but you better believe it will be hanging out there next Friday!!! These small gestures make me so happy. I smile every time I pull up the driveway. Some people may think I'm crazy, but I would just tell them I'm crazy for love.

that's a wrap

My dear friend who hosted the "mad about plaid" party, happened to celebrate her birthday the day before! When I ran into the package store to grab her a bottle of wine, I found wine in a box shaped like a purse! It made me laugh and I grabbed it for the birthday girl. I used the colors from the wine box (red, black and gold) as the inspiration for wrapping the rest of her gifts and also added some plaid ribbon. I arranged some flowers in a vase, bought a mini dessert for her to enjoy, and popped a gift into a glittered gift bag. I love how it all came together in the end and I hope that she had a fabulous birthday.

mad about plaid

Over the weekend we went to our friend's "mad about plaid" party! It was a great theme for a cold winters evening. Everyone came dressed in their favorite plaid shirts and scarves. Some people even wore plaid pants! They served white hot chocolate, which was DELICIOUS, in plaid cups. (Sorry for the quality of photographs, but I took all of these with my phone.)

I love how she mixed and matched all of the plaids. Those forks are to die for.

 

I made some coconut cupcakes with plaid ribbon flags.

 

 

The hostess even made the most amazing plaid garland! I love the yarn bow details at the ends.

It was a GREAT party and such a fun theme. This would be a great theme for a bachelor party, husband's birthday even for a little boy celebrating a winter birthday. I know one thing is for sure, this party confirmed that I am definitely "mad about plaid!"

valentines day is for the birds

We woke up to a snow day! It was a pleasant surprise after a late evening watching the Super Bowl. It was unexpected so I don't have any specific plans for us today, but sometimes that is the best kind of day. When searching for ideas for a Valentines Day class party for the kids I was thinking it would be fun to make all kinds of different bird treats and then hang them on a tree at school. I LOVED this one. We decided to go with a different theme for the class party, but I thought it would be fun to make a bird treat with the kids today. All you need is some round cereal and string or pip cleaners. All three kids sat down and started stringing cereal, we even had a discussion about patterns, and the older two decided to make rainbow bird treats.

If you do use pip cleaners you will be able to easily bend them into the shape of a heart. We have two bushes outside the dining room windows where we often see little birds. We thought this was the perfect place to put our valentines treats for them.

 

 

I love how colorful the hearts are against the snowy branches and this has proved to provide a lot of entertainment for the children. They have spent nearly an hour sitting in front of the window waiting for a bird to come enjoy their treats!

 

We made chocolate chip pancakes with whipped cream for lunch and will go play in the snow a little later.
Check out some other fun snow activities that are easy and provide great entertainment for the kids. Or, take out the kids sleeping bags and pillows and pop some popcorn and snuggle up for a movie.
Whatever you do I hope you all enjoy a slow paced, snowy day wherever you are reading this from!
Come back later this week for some fun details from a "mad about Plaid" party we attended over the weekend.