that's a wrap

I am thinking I may have posted something similar to this before, but my favorite gift for a winter baby is a copy of "The Hat" and a new winter hat. I put this one in a berry basket filled with natural straw and used a similar color rope/ribbon. A little gift to tell the new baby that we are excited for their winter arrival!

valentine's day

We had a lovely valentine's Day. Since the children were off from school we started the day with some pink, heart shaped pancakes, cards and small gifts.

We invited some friends over for a play date. I put some hot cocoa in the crock pot and froze some heart shaped ice cubes for the children to hide and play with in the snow.

After lunch we took the kids on their Valentine adventure. This year we decided to take them to check out the Pez factory in Orange Ct. The kids loved it! They had fun watching the candy being made and were thrilled to pick out a new pez dispenser from the hundreds displayed in the store.

That evening we got a babysitter and headed out to the wine bar at The Gris with some friends. We had a lovely evening sipping wine and nibbling on tapas. Essex is my favorite town in Ct. and it didn't disappoint with a gorgeous snow fall and a romantic evening with my husband. We had a lovely Valentines day from beginning to end.

that's a wrap

We always exchange Valentines with some friends who recently moved away. A little love to let them know we miss them. This year I went with a mustache theme. The card on the lid reads: "I mustache you a question, will you me my valentine?" I found mustache pajamas, ice cube molds, cupcake toppers, straws, even a lip-gloss! It was fun searching for all of these items and sending them off to our dear friends.
My children went back to school today. We had a busy and fun long weekend filled with sleepovers, three birthday parties, play dates, dentist appointments, a dinner date with my husband and a valentine adventure with the kids. I must admit that after 6 full days with everyone home I am relishing a quiet house while my little one naps.  I will share pictures from our Valentines Day later in the week. It's raining and I am about to curl up with a cup of tea and a book.

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.