Happy Valentine's Day!

My husband took Roman to the store last night to do the weekly grocery shopping. When they got home and we were unloading groceries Roman blurted out "we have a surprise for you in the car but we can't tell you!" :) He was so excited. Like, more excited than I have ever seen him. It was so sweet. So after he went to bed, Caleb brought this balloon in and told me Roman picked it out. This morning I was sitting in the living room when Roman got up so I told him that daddy put the surprise in the kitchen and he was to show me what it was. :) He was thrilled! It was such a fun moment to share with him.

The boys made homemade valentines for daddy this morning. We then loaded up and stopped by the store to pick out some candy on the way to visit him at work. It was a fun surprise for him! Here's Titus already helping daddy eat his candy.

Here are the boys' homemade valentines. They each picked out a little chocolate for their dad to go with their valentine.

Here they are with their mouths full of chocolate!

Caleb's probably loving that we brought him this much candy, but he needs to put on a few pounds to make this growing momma feel better! Kidding! :)

Wishing all of your a very Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you are able to take the time to do something special today.

Blast Off!

Today couldn't have been a more welcomed day. It was in the 60s and felt totally awesome outside! Even though we were wearing sweatshirts we really didn't need them.

My 3 (almost 4!) year old is in love with rockets. I'm not sure how it started, but he got a rocket for Christmas and his birthday is going to be rocket-themed. He got another rocket for Valentine's Day from his Papa and Nanny. We promised him we would shoot it off this weekend.

We went to our church's parking lot to shoot it. Lots of open space.

Getting it ready...

3...2...1

BLASTOFF! There it is!

There they go!

Roman learned basic physic principles watching his daddy put the rocket together and shoot it off. Action and reaction. Even though we didn't explain these to him, he was starting to get a basic understanding of Newton's Laws of Motion.

Smoothies

A favorite breakfast/snack we have around here is a fruity, cold smoothie. I follow The Pioneer Woman religiously and she just featured smoothies on her website the other day, so it got me in the mood to make smoothies again. We had kind of taken a break over the winter. I keep wanting to venture out into the green smoothie (adding spinach, etc), but I haven't made the leap yet. I know I'm missing out! :) But these fruit smoothies are delish. I buy all different types of fruit combos. It all depends on the grocery store and which one I'm shopping at that week. I tend to stay away from the raspberries and blackberries though. Too seedy for me.

Smoothies are ideal for having your kids help make their own breakfast in the kitchen. Roman loves to help make his smoothie. If I'm feeling really motivated I try to teach other good habits to have in the kitchen along with making food.

We start by washing our hands...

I put the amount of fruit I want him to dump into the blender in a bowl so he doesn't get too much. He of course loves to snitch some frozen fruit while he's doing this part.

Next we put in the yogurt. I like to use the unsweetened yogurt and maybe add a little honey (depending on if the fruit is sweetened or not in the bag), but we only had these individual yogurts. It's all about going with what you've got! :)

This step is completely optional, but I like to add a little extra nutritional value to the smoothie (especially since my younger son is in a really picky phase right now and hardly eats anything that's good for him). We use Juice Plus Complete.

Next he pours in the milk and we sometimes add ice.

Then I have him clean the counter because there will inevitably be spills. :)

Then we mix it in the Magic Bullet (those things are awesome!) and the smoothies are ready to drink!

It's generally pretty quiet for about five minutes while they slurp these down. Yum.

Valentine Party

Click on the link below to watch a little Valentines party action from today.
Valentine Party
~They made little heart-shaped magnets with their pictures in them
~They frosted heart-shaped chocolate cupcakes and decorated them with sprinkles
~My sister and I each read them a Valentines Day book
~We played games
1. I hid 12 hearts around the living room (in plain sight mostly) and they had so much fun finding them! That game was a big hit and we ended up playing it several times.
2. Cupid Says. Basically Simon Says except I didn't try to trick them by not saying it. I just said "Cupid Says rub your tummy!" or "Cupid says jump up and down!" Another fun game they enjoyed.
3. Each kid had 2 balloons and I had their mom blow up the balloon but not tie it. Then I put a target on the floor and the kids would let go of their balloon and see if it came close to the target. The balloons actually hit the target a couple of times! We were contained in a pretty small area so that might have helped. It made the kids giggle when their balloon would hit someone else as it deflated and flew around the room. I gave them two balloons so the adult could be blowing up the second balloon while the first one was flying around the room so it kept the momentum going.

A very fun party! Everything turned out to be age appropriate and the kids really enjoyed everything. It was short and sweet (the whole party was probably over in about 35 minutes). Then the kids just had fun playing.

I'm planning a little Valentine party for Roman this year and decided a little Valentine's Day decor would be in order. I printed the fun "Subway Art" from a blog I read: Eighteen25. I got most of my decorating ideas from there for these shelves. They are having a linky party today to show how everyone used their Subway Art so that's the main reason behind this post. I've always wanted to link to a linky party! I want to be part of the "in" crowd! :) I digress...

The only thing I bought for this arrangement was the candy to fill the Mason jar (I made sure to put a lid on it so the candy is still edible after Valentine's Day...lol!). I saw a cute idea to fill a tall hurricane vase with red pull-apart licorice, but figured it would take a LOT of candy and then I ran across red yarn in my craft bin. Figured it would give the same look. Add the printed art, the kids' art work and some decorations I already had and there you have it!

Inside Hopscotch

We are officially bored. :) I keep thinking "only one more month until Spring!" I looked back at pictures from March of last year and there are park pictures! Hallelujah! I won't get my hopes up for February's weather, but I know we've been to the park in February before.

I was trying to think of anything to do inside this afternoon to put an end to..."mom, what should we do?" I suggested Duck Duck Goose! but that was shot down. Hopscotch just came out of my mouth without me even thinking about how we would do it. I actually entertained the thought of getting some chalk and writing on our hardwood floors, but then decided this would be less messy and hopefully better for the floor. Not sure how the tape will come off of the linoleum though. :)

It definitely got them moving and gave me a few minutes of relaxation knowing my kids were entertained.

Don't mind my piled high countertops or the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon and my kids were still mostly in their pjs. And Roman only has one sock...just keepin' it real. :)

Butterfly Valentine

We made this craft this morning for something fun to do. I would suggest it would probably work better for a little older child. I helped Roman quite a bit. Of course it always helps when mom is better prepared and not working on the fly! :)

We started out by wrapping an empty toilet paper roll with construction paper and stapling it on. Next I cut out some butterfly wings and had him decorate them. We glued the wings onto the wrapped toilet paper roll.

Then I took a pipe cleaner and stapled that onto the toilet paper roll and had Roman roll the ends around a pencil.

And there it is! It's cute and festive and will be a nice little homemade Valentine's decoration in my living room.

I think we are finally seeing the light at the end of this sickness tunnel! My boys woke up in good moods, played pretty well this morning, and when they started getting cranky it finally dawned on me...they are actually hungry for lunch! :) So I made lunch for all of us for the first time in almost a week. It's nice to be back to somewhat of a normal routine around here!