Valentine's Day

I kept it pretty simple for Valentine's Day. 

Heart Shaped sandwiches for the kids' lunches.  Plus I put in a little love note

 

My hubby and I don't like going out on the actual day, so we make steak and had a yummy dinner at home with the kids!

Hubby got me these pretty tulips and another houseplant

(per my request! I need houseplants more than flowers that will die in a few days!)

The kids got a pretty good balanced meal for once, too.

They all thought it was pretty cool to sit at a *fancy* table.  

Oh and the cats were definitely coveting our steak...

Frodo apparently thought this place setting was meant for him!

Easy Valentine's using Tatoo boxes

 Making cute and unique Valentine's for school parties doesn't have to be stressful.  I found these little boxes with tattoos inside at Walmart.  Then I printed off little labels and Sam signed each one.  We slapped them on the box with a piece of tape.  Boom.  Done.

 

Luke's were just as easy.  I printed off these cute little pennants and Luke signed them and taped one to each pencil.  Boom.  Done.   

{Sorry for the lack of an "after" picture.  The project was done and put in a backpack pretty quick!}

Easy Mess Clean Up Tip

The button jar.

It's one of those love-hate relationships.

On one hand, it keeps the toddler SO busy for a good long time.
But then it's also SUPER messy and hard to clean up.

Here is my trick for cleaning up stuff like this off the carpets ~  a lid.  

or a book.
or a snowshovel... ok maybe not a snowshovel...but it might work!

Step one:

Mess Observed.  It's ALL over the room!!  It's going to take forever to clean up, right?

The guilty party.

Here's what you do:

Grab a lid like this, or a big children's board book works too.

Then just start scraping the floor!

See how it leaves a nice clean path!!  

So much easier than trying to use your hands

A pile is so much easier to clean up than having it spread all over the room. 

At this point I have the "guilty party" (uh-hem, Ruby) clean up the pile and put the buttons back in the jar herself.  She even sings the Daniel Tiger clean up song while she helps.

Now hide the button jar!

Who am I kidding....I'm just going to let her do it again tomorrow.  

I've got stuff to do!

This trick works for bigger stuff too.  When toys are ALL.OVER. the play room I grab a big board book (think over a foot big) and start scraping everything into a big pile.  

My kids do better at cleaning up when there's one big pile to clean up than when it's spread out all over the room.  Or at least that's what I think.  

How do you clean up your big messes?  Have you ever tried this method?  How about a snow shovel--I've seriously contemplated getting one just for toys. 

 

Cute Finds Friday ~ Adorable Valentine's Day Stuffies

I shop at Walmart and I'm not afraid to let the world know.

Also, I find cute things there!

Like these adorable Valentine's Day Stuffed toys.  

But how cute are these?!

 It took ALL my willpower not to buy them all! In fact I walked away without buying any of them because I'm **slightly** addicted to stuffed animals and such and we have entirely too many already.

And I seriously had a hard time walking away from this one just because it makes me giggle every time I see it!