Praises of a Wife and Mommy

I love how happy toddlers can get from something so simple, like a cupcake.   :)  We made some tasty Valentine Cupcakes this week and when I mentioned snack and cupcakes they were so wiggly in their seats.  They may have only eaten the frosting off their cupcakes but what adorable smiles and fun excitement these two boys showed me.  :) 

Happy Valentines Day!!! Are you the type of person who loves to decorate for every holiday?  Then this is a great idea that will save you money!  This is a simple Do It Yourself idea to create great Valentines Decorations.   All you need: Cardboard  Yarn Yep only 2 things!  Simply cut the patter you want out of the cardboard and then wrap it with yarn.  I like to wrap the yarn in all different directions to make it more textured.  You may like a more clean crisp look and then you will have to wrap very carefully.  Either way it does not take too much of you time and is very affordable and looks great in the window, staircase, or any other place you keep decorations.  

I-Spy is a fun game for children of all ages.  Take the same concept from searching in a book to a bottle.   You can look around your house right now for things that you can put in a bottle to create this fun and entertaining game. The kids and I walked around the house and found: necklace glitter noodle beads of all sorts of sizes and shapes food coloring Candy Yarn There could have been many more items to place in our I-spy bottle such as rice, paper, paper clips, caps, and anything small enough to fit through the hole.  We wanted to keep our items in the Valentines theme.   One of our bottles has glitter and the other has food coloring.  Each bottle is fun and entertaining.   You can allow your child to shake them and play on their own or you can create a game of I-spy with the bottles.  :)  Hope you enjoy creating some Valentine I-Spy Bottles.  

Valentines Day is a week away!!!  Have you made some date plans with your spouse?  Get a babysitter lined up?  Made your Valentines with your children for their classmates?   We had a little sensory time with some shaving cream and glitter the other day.  I have a daycare boy who as you can see in the picture below does not like to make a mess and then my son who is all about messy play!   Grab the shaving cream and glitter and get creating some fun Valentine memories.  :) 

I needed my daughters help decorating some paper bags so I could put in my hubby's Valentine presents.  Yes, I said presents but don't worry they are very inexpensive gifts that he will be taking  each day to work with him.  :)  Who said Valentines Day is only one day.... Love is something we are commanded to do so lets do it EVERY DAY!  :)  All you need is some paint and a couple toilet paper roll tubes.  Just fold and bend them to get them in the best heart shape.  :)  I also found some cookie cutters so we could write DAD.  :)

My daughter keeps requesting more Valentines crafts.  I am not sure if its because she "loves" well or if there is a lot of "pink" in Valentines Day.  :)  She loves the color pink!  It is also a good idea to talk about love and what it means and what the Bible says about it.  :)  This was a simple craft that younger ones can enjoy.  My 4 year old traced her hand and colored it in and that was our "tree."  After that I gave her the glue bottle and heart cutouts from the dollar store and let her glue them on her tree.  You could also cut out your own hearts but we purchased these a few weeks ago so I was waiting to use some of them.  :)  "To love Him with all your heart, with all your understanding, and with all your strength, and to love your neighbor as yourself is more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices." (Mark 12:33)

Earlier in the day my daughter and I cut out hearts and she designed some with white crayon and then she asked me to write a few things one including an adorable message for her daddy.   When ever you use white crayon on white paper you can not see it until you use water color paints...it is a so fun watching the excitement on my lil girls face.  Daddy and Selah getting started.   Tongue action... its her working hard pose.   Daddy's message!  HE IS THE BEST DAD!  It is near Valentines Day so go get creative and make a secret message for a loved one and send some water colors paints along so they can reveal it and love it!  :)   "Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart." (Psalms 37:4)

We started making some Valentines over the weekend.  I pre-cut the heart shape and then she glued tissue paper and sparkly ribbon in the middle.  Using tissue paper is great because you can let them rip it or practice cutting.   The project was easy but very pretty!  :) She already gave 2 of the 3 she made out to people she loves.  :)   DONT FORGET to enter my Girl Valentine's Hair Clip Giveaway HERE !!  :)  Good luck

My daughter picked out her Valentines and we filled them out yesterday and this morning.  She goes to Awana on Thursdays so she really wanted to give Valentines to her classmates. :) So the rest of the day I will be hearing "is it time to go to Awana yet?" I also saw a cute idea at Money Saving Mom  the other day so we had to try it ourselves.  After nap time yesterday my daughter and I made play-dough.  It was a lot of fun and today we packaged them up for her Awana classmates.  I think they turned out really well.  I was also very excited about the verse the kids are memorizing this week Jeremiah 31:3 " I have loved you with and everlasting love."  It worked perfect for Valentines Day.   Here are some pictures of our Valentines: A couple weeks ago we also did some painting of hearts.  Here are the pictures of them: This is shaving cream with a little paint.  My 3 year old had a lot of fun.