Happy Valentine's Day

We've had a lot of fun leading up to Valentine's Day!  We continued our Valentine's Mail this year.

 

One day this week the kids got  notes telling them we were going to visit a cupcake shop!

One morning they got mustache lollipops.

 

Last year I shared my pathetic attempt at cutting hearts out of fruit and they were so sad that my friend Laura was compelled to give me her tiny heart cookie cutter.  I used it for pepperonis one night--the pizza is supposed to be heart shaped, too, though it's kind of hard to tell.

 

These were the Valentines the kids handed out this year (from Pinterest, of course).

 

 

Alice ran out of room every time for the E and just put it in wherever she thought it would fit.

My friend Lisa was nice enough to host a Valentine's Party again this year.

 

There were actually boys his age there, so Jack was quick to get back to playing.  This is one of the few pictures I got of him!

Alice was excited to go through her box!

 

Checking out the crazy straw

 

 

Much to Jack's dismay, we had meatloaf for dinner tonight.  I asked if heart shaped meatloaf would be better and he was skeptical.

 

I used the cookie cutter again to make heart shaped potatoes.  That so would not have happened if I had had to freehand them!

I hope you had a great Valentine's Day!

Learning Together: Albert & Feathers for Lunch

 We just finished up another couple of weeks of learning together.  This time Jack used Albert (from Volume 4 of FIAR) and Alice used Feathers for Lunch.  All of the lapbook stuff the kids used was from Homeschool Share (here and here).

 We started off with a bird themed lunch--a sandwich (I think that's a pigeon, but I'm not quite sure), birdseed (trail mix), sour worms, and blueberries.

 We made bird feeders to hang in the trees.

 And we also made birdseed cupcakes from the recipe in Riki's Birdhouse.

 We checked out a DVD from our library about birds that had a great demonstration about what a bird's gizzard does, so we tried it ourselves.  You put some sunflower seeds (out of the shell) in a bag with a bit of water and let them soak.  Then add some aquarium gravel.

 

 Grind the seeds and the gravel together in the bag.

 You can see how the gravel has started to break down the seeds!

 Alice had a basket full of bird books and games--many pulled from our Summer Adventure Box the year she was born!

 We love Birdhouse for Rent and Birds--we have read these many times over the several years!

 I got Counting Is for the Birds this year after reading about it on Relentlessly Fun, Deceptively Educational.

 Alice made this B bird (based on an idea I saw on Pinterest).

 

 One day we read different descriptive statements and decided if they were talking about cats or birds.

 Jack learned about how different birds have different beaks depending on what they need their beaks to do.  Beaks! is a great book and we used some pages from the Evan Moor Giant Science Resource Book, too.

 We read Birdsongs together, too.

 Jack also learned about our state bird with United Tweets of America.

 

 Albert checks the weather each day, so we used this book to try some weather forecasting for ourselves.

 

We made barometers from cans, balloons, rubber bands, and straws.  They actually moved a little which surprised me because our weather was pretty much the same every day while we were doing this!

Right now the kids are each doing their own things, but next week we'll be back together with Mailing May and Trains!

Date Night

 Last night was the Daddy Daughter Dance.  Alice has been looking forward to this since she saw the decorations at the gym after last year's dance.

 While the boys were out running errands we gave ourselves pedicures.

 Alice chose to eat at Taco Bueno before the dance.

 With her cousin

 When Jay brought her back to my parents' house, she was pretty worn out.  She got a second wind (and a third), though.

 My date for the evening was Jack!

He wanted to go out for pizza so we did that and then watched the new episode of Marvin Marvin.

After the dance, Jay and I went to a Valentine party for his work and then we went home for a Downton Abbey marathon.  We had to finish the last episode when we got up this morning, but we are now done with the third season and I can resume my chores in the evening again.

Fun Friday: Calm Before the Storm

 Today was a calm day spent mostly at home (except for the laundry/TMNT run to my parents' house tonight).  Alice got Pinkalicious and the Pink Hat Parade in her Valentine Mail this morning and decided to make her own hat.  Tomorrow will be crazy busy--fun, but crazy busy.

Since we didn't do much today, here are a few pictures from our week.

 

 Tuesday we went to IHOP for their annual Pancake Day fundraiser.  Alice actually shook the hand of one of the Shriners there--she told us it was because he had a hat like Grunkle Stan's.

 Alice copied her name on the sign.

 Wednesday was National Frozen Yogurt Day so we stopped in for a treat--and the kids deserved it, too, since they spent several hours dress shopping with me.

 

 Thursday Alice took some pictures at PE.  That's Jack in the circle there.  Alice calls the PE teacher Mr. Thora (his name is Thor) because she's watched a lot of Arthur.

 And of course you have to take some pictures of yourself!

Today's post at MetroFamily is all about President's Day resources.

Happy Friday!

Super Weekend

 We had a pretty super weekend here.  Saturday morning we stopped for donuts before grocery shopping.

 It was warm enough to spend a little time outside.

 

 Rainbow jello for dessert!

 Saturday night Jay made a fire and we watched movies and had a sleepover in the living room.  I found out that I am waaay to old to sleep on a wood floor.

 Does it get any cozier than this?

Last night we went to Jay's sister's house to watch the game and the kids got to meet their new cousin, Olivia.  Alice was alternately nervous and interested.

When we got home, Jay and I watched two hours of Downton Abbey.  My fabulous husband watched a season and a half over the weekend to get caught up to where I was AND he got season three on blu-ray so we don't have to wait on PBS!

I hope you had a great weekend!

Fun Friday: For the Birds

 Both kids are learning about birds right now and today we made treats for the birds.

 We covered toilet paper tubes with peanut butter, rolled them in birdseed, put a ribbon through the tube, and hung them in the trees.  Actually, I didn't have any toilet paper tubes and looked at a couple of rolls to see if they were small enough that I could justify unrolling them and leaving the paper next to the toilet when I remembered using up some paper towels last night and I was able to salvage the tube.  That's what I get for trying to declutter and tossing my stash!

 

 We also made birdseed cupcakes (recipe from Riki's Birdhouse) but those have to chill, so we will put them out tomorrow when we check our other feeders.

And since it's the first of February, the kids started getting Valentine Mail this morning!  This is a fun way to beat the winter blahs and the kids really enjoy it.

Happy Friday!