More Valentine Action

Our February has been cursed with flu, strep, impetigo, more flu, mysterios fevers, bad attitude, and whining. It has sucked since February 4th when I first took Tucker to the doctor's office for two ear infections. And somewhere in the middle of the chaos, Cameron decided she wanted to have some of her friends over for a little Valentine swap. What started as a small affair, of course, because ten friends and a full blown party. I was sicker than a dog the day of this party as was Tucker, who was quarrantined in the back bedroom with 104 degree temp. And Cameron, who was good when the party started, was sicker than everybody by the time it was over. So, for those of us who were infected, I apologize, but I hope you all had a great time!


We started by having each girl bring 10 Valentines and when they got there, they were asked to put one in each bag. Some of the girls went all out and made some awesome cards.

Then, we had a small snack at our red and pink love table. I cut heart shaped peanut butter and jelly or ham and cheese sandwiches along with pink punch and red jello cups.



The kiddos were so cute all decked out in their pink and red and all smiles....except for Cameron who was getting paler and paler by the minute and more and more tired.


The table before the girls arrived.

A close up of each girl's spot. The great thing about procrastinating and planning a party the day before it happens is that all left over decorations are usually marked down to dirt cheap. I decorated and went all out and only spent a few dollars to do so.

And, aside from the flu, I think everybody had a great time. Cameron proceeded to sleep all that evening and all the next day while she ran the nastiest fever I have ever seen a kid run. She missed school the following week, made it back for one day, and then was home for President's day, when we had to take her to the doctor for a bad case of Impetigo, which apparantly is a version of strep that gets underneath the skin. So now she looks like she has something really nasty and we are on day #20 of being sick in the Brown house. I am ready to climb the walls and want to run away. Sick kiddos suck.

Your Little Sweeties Card

The first week of February, I decided on a list of activities and projects that we would complete here in our house to lead up to the very special 14th. The list included handmade valentines for Camerons class, teacher gifts for both kids, valentines for Cameron's dance class and teacher, a full blown kindergarten valentine party with me as room mom, a home valentine party for Cameron and some of her friends, something handmade for the grandparents and something for Matt.

Well guess what came rolling through out house on the 4th? Two raging ear infections followed closely behind with a 10 day flu for both kids and we are still trying to recover. I'm talking hot fevers, whiny kids, and coughing until you vomit. Needless to say, Valentine's Day didn't go quite how we expected. I did throw a party at school, except my daughter and I both missed it. But I did complete 26 jello sundaes and this card just in time to drop them off and head back to the sick house.



But, I had asked the teacher for an extra set of class photos so I knew she was expecting something, and so I did work on this in between dosing kids on tylenol and cough medicine.

And so used the small baking cups and made sweets out of each kiddo. I glued them onto a chipboard heart that had been layered with a red doilie and lined with buttons to tie it all together. The teacher loved it and it was easy to make!

Valentine Love Jars

I never claimed to be a photographer. My camera was somehow turned to black and white mode and I didn't catch it on this shot of my red, pink, and white jelly beans and Valentine display that was all color coordinated. The one time everything matched, and that's the time the camera decided to try something new.

I have a linen closet at the end of my hallway that is packed to the point that you duck when you open the door and it is full of fall and Christmas. My Valentine's Day decor consisted of about half of a box combined with Easter. This year, I was able to find some awesome subway art, and some blog inspiration and I decorated the top shelf of my baker's rack with pink, red, and white.


On a different day, however, I decided to photograph my newest project. My Valentine Love Jars. I found these containers at the local Dollar Store and added some ribbon and hand made name tags to make them extra cute. Beside the jars I placed a basket of pre cut hearts. Through the course of February, the kids were able to choose a heart and write a note to someone in the family. By the end of the two weeks we had a whole collection of notes to read. I originally planned on writing notes every day of February, but, time got away from me and I think I actually only wrote about four notes for each person. I think the kiddos enjoyed it, especially Cameron who is learning to read and write. Tucker mostly just drew pictures and lost interest, the combination of being three and being a boy doesn't go real well with Valentine Love Jars. But you take what you can get, and hope that if I do enough cheesy love stuff with them, then someday they won't be afraid to show their wives how much they mean to them.

Oh, and if you notice my tags are made out of paint samples from Lowe's. Had time to kill while Matt was "Tooling" around the tool department, and noticed that lots of the shades of pinks and reds were titled things like "First Kiss", and "Cupid's Pink". I had a whole handful of them shoved down in the crack of Brody's carseat. They make great Valentine cards!

Cameron is Five and ONE HALF

And don't you forget it! I appreciate the half birthday because I was a summer birthday so I never got to acknowledge mine at school. And Cameron is a summer birthday as well. And at this age, six months is a huge milestone and you are so much bigger when you can say five and a half instead of just five.

So in this house, we celebrate the half birthdays. We don't do much. Sometimes we go get an ice cream, sometimes we simply just point it out. But it's something that is important and makes the kiddos feel that much more special for that day.

And if there is one thing that I learned this past year, it is to acknowledge the little things, celebrate and embrace life because you just never know when it's going to be over. A lesson learned from watching a friend of mine who lost a little boy who was three this year to a freak accident. My son and her son were in preschool together and this was such a shock to the heart. This happened last fall and it haunts me every day. I don't think that I will ever forget this and so, almost guiltily, I hold my kiddos a little tighter, try not to get so annoyed at the little things, take time to pray for them and with them, and love them for every second of every day, because, as we all found out in my community, you just can't take that for granted.

So for this reason, we document and celebrate the halfs. And Cameron totally gets it this year and thinks she's ever so old, while Tucker just thinks this means it's time to start planning the big party, which is not until July, a LUIGI party, is what's on the agenda, not to be confused with a MARIO Party. :) Love the details!

And so here is a shot of Miss Cameron learning how to be five and a half. I walked down the hall and caught her just hanging out, enjoying her room. Entertaining herself, and I realized, the baby girl I have had is slowly drifting away. I can almost picture her as a teenager in that same pose, but probably texting or doing whatever new fad it is at the time. Love this shot!

Four Months Old

Love this boy. Can't believe how big he's getting. Four months old now. And he is really starting to become part of this family. Loves to play with the kids on the floor. Loves to coo and try to talk to get your attention. Happy all the time. Big grins and dimples. Rolling over both ways. Sitting up in the Bumbo Seat. Sleeping mostly through the night. Eating rice cereal and applesauce. Has been to his first movie, Rapunzel with the family. Did great! Not a day goes by that I am not truly grateful we decided to take the "hard route" and have another one. What a blessing he is! Kids are expensive, a hassle, and need so much. People look at you and wonder when you're going to quit. But Brody was the missing piece to the puzzle. I am such a lucky mommy!

Foam Snowmen

Back in September, I took Cameron to sign up for Girl Scouts and they were, of course, short for leaders. Brody was only about a week or two old and I was tired and stressed out. And I know I said NO when they asked me to be a Daisy Troop leader. I know I did. But somehow, here I am Daisy Troop Leader Extraordinaire.

And so, with no past involvement in Girl Scouts, I paid my $12 to become and "Adult Girl Scout", which is the first step, and then paid my $20 for a background check, which you wouldn't think would be an issue, but the reason for the shortage of leaders is not for lack of interest, it's just that seven of the potential leaders could not pass their background checks. Yup. I'm serious. Seven. Gotta love our small town.

And because I'm a control freak, I decided that I would rather just be the leader after all, regardless of the fact that my house is too small and Brody is clinging to me the entire time. And sometimes it's a huge chaotic mess, but the girls are sweeties and the crafting is always a good time.

So here we are in January making Foam Snowmen. I got the inspiration from the February Scrapbooks Etc. Magazine. But they used bigger balls. (that's what she said) and ours were from little kits that I found at the dollar store. So even though they were smaller than what I had wanted to use, they were cheap and so we went with it.

And now that Cameron and her friends are five, I am seeing that they are having their own views of what is cute and what is not, so while these all turned out cute, not one of them turned out like mine. So cute!




And so if you wanted to make these, I guess the photos are pretty self explanatory, but we did find that with kids, using the glue dots to attach buttons and flowers and hair seemed to work quite a bit better than using glue. And like I said, if you wanted to find the bigger sized snowmen, they are on scrapbooksetc.com. A great cold and nasty day activity.