backyard fun in the winter time

Be Mine

We did homemade valentines for the kids this year.  They were super easy ones I found on pinterest that pretty much involved printed out on cardstock, cutting out, and having the kids add their name.  That's my kind of homemade.

Noah had two variations - you make my heart bounce, with bouncy balls that he gave to the girls in his class, and then a star wars, "May the Force be with you on Valentines Day" with a glow bracelet light saber. Olivia, after being shown lots and lots of cute options, picked the cupids arrow, which we attached a glow stick to.  For Harrison we found a fun "fortune teller" variation, which seemed to fit a 4th grader.  We packaged them up with candy, and I think they were a big hit.

Harrison also got to decorate his own valentines box at home.  We came up with a robot theme using an old Kleenex box and a shoe box covered in foil.  

With Olivia's hair getting longer all the time, I decided it was high time I start trying out some of those fun little girl hair dos while she'll still let me.  

We did heart shaped pig tails for her school valentines party.  

And heart shaped french braids for Valentine's day.  I surprised myself with my french braiding skills.  Thank goodness for video tutorials on this kind of thing!

For dinner on Valentines day, I told the kids we were going to have a "romantic meal" as a family.  Which of course means eating by candle light.

There was candy sprinkled across the table, and a licorice rope heart on each plate.  I also wrote each person a list of the 10 things I love about them.  We'd been doing love note mail boxes all month, but I haven't been the best about it, so this was my chance to catch up.

We had some simple decorations out all month, which included some blocks I got at target a couple years ago.  They are meant spell things like "LOVE," "XOXO," "KISS," "HUGS," but everytime I walked by the kids had intentionally spelled something else.  This was their favorite:

Pinewood Derby (Harrison guest blogger)

This year I wanted to do something "good". Finally, I got a good idea. I decided to do an angry birds one, and it worked out pretty well. 

putting the race car in position 

racing! 

me with my car, pointing to where I live.

Although I didn't get first, second, or third place, it was fun. And if you had fun, you won, right?