Homemade Valentine's Ideas

Do you realize that Valentine's Day is less than a month away?  Well it is.  We do a little "Valentine's Party" with our co-op so the boys make Valentine's to hand out to each family (and extras to hand out to their close friends)  I've been searching Pinterest for fun (cheap) ideas and thought I would share a few here.

Landeelu provides a free printable and easy instructions to make these cute Emoji Valentines. 

 This is a cute idea from the gracious wife that's simple and easy.  

I have a Starburst loving kid who might like this idea from Capturing Joy.

Creations by Kara gives a simple idea using Laffy Taffy - another favorite of one of my boys. 

Passion for Savings gives a cute idea too!  

Here's another idea from The Gracious Wife that is super cute. 

So, what are we doing?  You'll have to wait for that!  I put together a Pinterest Folder with 8-10 ideas that I'm willing to help the boys with and then I let them pick.  Last year they couldn't decide so they each picked two ideas and made those.  I'm hoping they only pick one idea each this year!  Once our ideas are complete, I'll be sure to share! 

Our favorite games

My boys really enjoy games - especially Nate.  I thought I would share some of our favorite games for all of you!

 We first played Pictureka while visited my brother and sister-in-law in South Carolina.  Nate fell in love with this game.  When we were leaving, my sister-in-law gave it to him and he was thrilled.  I will admit that when we have a game night, I always love it when this game comes out!  It's a great version of "I spy" and really, truly, fun! 

 Blokus is a game Josh got for his birthday.  It was recommended on another blog and got great reviews.  I ordered it and hoped for the best.  The boys love it and learned it quickly.  I love this game because they are able to teach other people - they taught our little friends who come over how to play and they took it to their Grandparents and taught their Grandma how to play too!  It goes really quick - and lets admit it folks, no one likes a game that lasts hours with kids! 

 I'll be honest, this is not my favorite game BUT the boys love it.  Josh asked for this for Christmas about 4 years ago I believe.  It is a true Chess game but one side has images on the board to help with moving and you use cards that tell you which piece to move and how to move it.  It's a great way to learn the game.  I just don't enjoy it because 1) I don't like Chess and 2) it does take a while to finish a game! 

 This was another birthday game!  It had been on my list for a few years as a fun game to get and I finally picked it up for Josh.  It's fun, active, and easy to play.  It also goes fast.  The balls are similar to ping pong balls - I thought they would be hard or something and was surprised at how easy they bounce into the squares. 

This is another game from my Sister-in-Law and is fabulous for preschool/Kinders!  It's a simple matching bingo style game.  My boys will still pull this one out just fun. 

Nate pick this game up at our AWANA fair last year.  He loves cup stacking and this game didn't disappoint.  The cups are small which makes the "race" more interesting as you try to stack your cups in the order shown on the cards and be the first to hit the bell.  It is a stressful game HA!  But just so much fun! 

Origami Week 1

As I started working on my plans for Origami, I was a little stumped on week one.  I wanted it to be easy enough to have kids not get lost but still have the project be fun.  Well, I really under planned and we ended up with quite a bit of time.  That's ok, it's our third hour and kids are tired and hungry! My helpers (I have two of them but only have 6 kids - 2 who were gone week 1!) didn't necessarily help either - they got caught up  making projects from the book.  On one hand it was fine but they also made some things that I had planned for a future week - like paper airplanes - and then had kids making them as extra stuff.  Uuugg!  I felt a little disorganized this week too so I need to do better on that for future weeks!

Anyway, on this first week, I handed out their supplies and then we made the very first two shapes - a cat and and dog.  They got to add faces to their animals with googly eyes.  Then, we used water colors to paint a background scene to add their animals too. 

As I'm typing this, I realized that I left the finish products at Friday School so I can't take photos of them!  

Once we finished the projects and cleaned up, I read this book about The Paper Crane.  It was an easy read with interesting pictures.  

The rest of the hour, the students could practice making other items from their book.  

Sunday Worship - Great Is Thy Faithfulness (Beginning. and the End)

This is another song that I heard on the radio not long ago and just fell in love with  !

Our Week in Photos #3

We worked this week on finishing up our semester, had two "ice days" and started Friday School just to name a few things in our week.  Now, here's our week in photos

 We started out our week with haircuts.  I love that our stylist now washes the boys hair too.  She said that they are "Now big enough for the bowl".  They absolutely love this !! 

 The boys and I went for a walk on Monday night . . this is what we all felt like after our 20 minutes of "brisk walking" HA!  

 On Tuesday I had a board meeting - this was the "board kids" practicing our new song. 

 Tuesday and Wednesday were "ice days"  Our friends were with us both days as school was canceled.  There was lots of train circles, video games, and, well, ice! 

 Thursday brought the Homeschool Library activity.  They learned about Antartica - Snow shoe races, a snow storm experiment, and making snowballs with q-tips and styrofoam balls. 

 They still love to ride "Sandy" at Meijer . . .I'm not sure how much longer this will be fun! 

Finally, we ended our week with Friday School :-) 

Weekly Menu

Do you know what I've noticed?  Grocery prices went up as of January 1st.  Our milk went from $1.89 to $2.49 a gallon; Toilet paper packages went from $5.99 to $7.99 and Koolaid packs went from $0.20 to $0.25 a pack.  That's just to name a few.  Now I might actually really need to become an Aldi shopper just to make up the difference!!  Uuugg.  It's just crazy how expensive things are getting at the store.

On to other things.  A few weeks ago the boys asked when they could go stay with my mom for a few days. After looking at the calendar, I figured out that this coming week would be perfect since they had a few days off from school.  That means I limit my cooking :-)  

Friday - The plan is to take the boys to my moms so dinner will be on the road or with her which ever works out better. 

Saturday - Darryl and I are eating out :-) 

Sunday - either eating out or eating in but I'm not cooking :-) 

Monday - We'll grab something easy - like Taco Bell - just so I don't have to cook HA! 

Tuesday - Teriyaki Chicken Legs, Amish Noodles, and Green Beans

Wednesday - Super simple - Mac and Cheese for Nate and Pizza for Josh :-) 

Thursday - Spaghetti Pie, Garlic Bread and Green Beans

What I'm Reading

Since we are midway through the month I thought I'd share what I'm reading.  I talked earlier this week about my book club book and my book study book but this will include other books I've finished this month as well as what I'm reading right now.

 My mom and I had the opportunity to hear Beverly Lewis speak at a book signing last fall.  I picked up this book at that time and just haven't had a chance to read it yet.  I'm looking forward to reading it! 

 This is one of the books that I started in a book study years and years ago but never finished it.  I just never seemed to have the time to really read it and apply it.  Since I focus so much on not letting anyone steal my joy, I wanted to get back to this book so I could understand the importance of being positive with my kids too. 

 I love Liz Curtis Higgs.  I also love the story of Ruth.  Put those two together and I'm hoping this is a homerun! 

 This is my next book club book.  I've started reading it already and it has my full attention.  

As an Amazon Prime Member, I usually get one free "new release" book each month.  In January they gave out two!  I picked the two above.  Sometimes they are good, sometimes they are not - but they are free so that's ok!  These are downloaded on my kindle ready to read!

Since we are already half way through the month, I'm not sure how much I'll get read but these are my January goal :-)  We are considering switching from Cable TV to Hulu and I've already learned with the trial of Hulu that it's not as easy to watch TV without cable . . so maybe I'll read more ;-)