Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day

My sweet girls on Valentine's Day!

Our Valentine's Day was a busy one!  We hosted a little Valentine's play group with friends that morning and the kids all had a blast.  They played, made Valentine's, played some more, ate cupcakes, and then played some more!  My girls love hosting their friends here and we really should have more play groups...I'll put that on my Needs Improvement List...#103!

After our morning play group, we got busy getting ready for our special Valentine's dinner for Daddy!  We made a quick trip to the grocery store to get the remaining items on my list and then we were set.  The girls helped me make heart shaped rice krispie treats that we dipped in chocolate and added sprinkles. 

The dinner menu was one of Daddy's (and Mommy's) favorite, Garlic Cheese grits with shrimp, asparagus, fresh fruit and bread.  Sometimes the girls will eat the grits and sometimes they won't.  This night, they all decided NOT to eat the grits.  Oh, well, more for us.  They were delicious!

The girls helped me set the table with paper hearts and candles.  There's a little story behind the small paper hearts on the table.  A lot of those hearts have little love quotes on them.  I made these hearts for the first Valentine's dinner I ever made Danny when we were dating.  It will come to no surprise to some of you that I kept these hearts and I bring them out every Valentine's day to display on out table.  It has become a special tradition of ours. 

Aubrey made her first Valentine's this year.  Well, not her first, but the first one's that she did completely by herself.  She was so thoughtful to make one for each of her sisters and I think she did a fabulous job!

My little Alexandra giving me some Valentine kisses after dinner!

I'm not sure why, but I have always loved decorating for Valentine's day.  I haven't had time to do a whole lot of crafting lately, so I decided to step it up with Valentine's day.  I follow so many wonderful blogs that have the most amazing craft ideas.  They are so inspiring, so these are a couple of the things I made to bring a little red, pink and white love into the house for Valentine's Day.

 

  My first project with my new Silhouette Machine!  

This machine is awesome and I can't wait to have more time to play with it!

My front door plaque.  I'm very much a copy-cat artist!  I saw one similar to this posted on fb.  

I've been wanting to make one of these for a while, so here it is.  

It was so easy, too!  Be on the lookout for more of these!

Our foyer entrance. The wreath is made with a styrofoam ring wrapped in ribbon with cupcake wrapper hot-glued on!  It was super easy and cheap!  I also printed the Love one Another sign from a blog and framed it in a frame my mom gave me for Christmas.  I used my wonderful JoAnn, Michael's, and A.C. Moore coupons to by the apothecary jar and candles.  I finished the look off by adding M&M's to the jar and placing some greenery on the table!

 I also made a smaller version of the cupcake wrapper wreath to place in the girl's dollhouse in the playroom!

Our morning chocolate chip muffins were displayed on different height pedastals.  I bought the plates and cups at Target (all for around $7).  Instead of gluing the plates to the cups, I added velcro to the plate and cup.  This way, I can change out the plates for different seasons simply by adding velcro dots. 

I also got the red & white pokadot plates so that I could use these for different holidays.  

I can use them for the Fourth or July or Christmas!

This is a better view of the cup beneath the plate.  

Another great idea for this is to fill the cup with decorations to to add a little pizazz to it!

Aubrey and I also made some really cute hearts made out of wax paper and melted crayons that we hung from our kitchen table lighting.  I don't have a picture of these hearts because a certain 20 month old climbed onto the table and ripped them all down while I was blow drying my hair!  Here's a picture of what they looked like, though!

Ok.  Ours didn't look quite as good as Martha Stewart's, 

but they were still cute!

Let's Make Our Bed!

Aubrey has been doing a great job lately of helping me keep her room clean and making up her bed.  Some days, she feels like all her dolls and animals need to be a part of the bed-making process.  

I'm always fast to give her wonderful praise on taking the initiative to make up her bed, 

so anyway she wants to do it is fine with me!

 

This picture reminds me of "Where's Waldo."
Aubrey thought Alexandra would look cute on the bed with all of her dolls and animals as well!

She's a Handy Girl!

Danny and his dad were building an awesome table and chairs for the girls and Aubrey thought they might need her help as well.

Warning:  You will see from the pictures below, that Aubrey dressed herself in her "work clothes."

Aubrey's project was making a path out of the scrap wood.

 She has all of her tools that she needs!  

This is a little scary to me, but sometimes I just have to give in to her dad!

Here's she goes! 

Here is her finished work.  Yes, she did this completely by herself! 

I have a feeling that we will be making some cool things together when she gets older! 

She's so proud of herself...and she should be!

It wasn't all easy to do!  Ha!  

I love this face!

Cereal Galore!

Between the B1G1 deals last week on cereal and the 50%off deals this past weekend, we are stocked up on cereal!  My girls love to eat cereal for breakfast and by the time all 5 of us (most mornings) have a bowl, we go through quite a lot of cereal!

I counted up our stash and we currently have 20 boxes of cereal in the pantry!  I know this seems like a lot, but when you have good sales stacked with coupons, it pays to stock up.  I probably paid anywhere from $1.00 to $1.50 for each box!

Aubrey looked in the pantry and said, "WOW!  That's a lot of cereal!"  Also notice that the Pop Tarts were on sale, too!  Those should last us at least a couple of months!

I love...

Anna's new expression is, "Mommy, I love...."  It's so funny to hear her say this and associate it with those things she loves the most such as:

• I love ice cream.
• I love Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
• I love my blankie and alphie.
• I love eggs.
• I love breakfast.

The best is: "I love you, mommy," followed by a bear squeeze around my neck.

She can be so sweet...when she wants to be!

Zoo Trip with Pop Pop and Phyllis

Dan and Phyllis came to visit us after Christmas, so we thought it fitting to take them to the zoo since they were the ones who gave us our annual pass last year for the girl's birthdays.  We had a great time!  The girls never tire of seeing all the animals and they especially love spending time with "Pop-Pop" and Phyllis.

Alexandra's 18 Month Check-up at 19 Months Old

Yes, that's right.  I was a month and 4 days late for Alexandra's 18 month check-up (do you also see how tardy I am with this post).  That's what a girl gets when she turns 18 months in December (Christmas chaos) and she's the third child!

Anyway, Alexandra had a great appointment!  She is 22.8 pounds and 32" tall.  She is very quickly catching up with Anna!  She is eating like a horse and isn't that picky with her foods (which they all were like this at this age and I'm just not going to kid myself because I know it will come to a screeching halt).  She is talking up a storm and can even put three words together!  I have no idea how many words she is actually saying because she says something new every day!  She is talking non-stop and her favorite things to say are:

• Where my pappy (pacifier)?
• Where Daddy?
• Where Mommy? (I did get confirmation from Danny that she does actually say this.  The reason I asked him was because every time I go to get her out of her crib, the first thing she says is "Where Daddy?"  I finally asked Danny if she asked where I was when he gets her out of the crib?  I just needed to feel her love!)
• Aubee
• Hey (followed by somebody's name...Aubee, mommy, daddy, MeMe, Poppy, YaYa, etc.)
• She's working on saying Anna's name, but it comes out as a very nasal sound long "e" followed by "nna"
• More
• No! (As she points her finger at you...which will have to come to a stop very soon!)
• Go! (As in go away - this is normally directed at one of her sisters!)

Basically anything that you ask her to say, she will repeat.  This morning I told Aubrey, "That's enough."  Alexandra chimed in right behind me with, "Eno Aubee. Eno Aubee"

We have taken her pappy away from her during that day and the transition was much easier than I thought.  Most days, she is very willing to drop her pappy back in her crib once I pick her up.  Every once in a while, I'll see that she has gone into her room, reached in her crib and got a pappy.  Once I see her, I will tell her to go put it back in her bed and she takes off in a run to put her pappy in her bed.

I attempted to get a picture of just Alexandra before her doctor's appointment, but she's not cooperating with the camera these days.  Miraculously, Aubrey and Anna were cooperating, so this is the picture I got.  Don't you just love Alexandra's little personality coming out in this picture?

She can keep up with her older sister with no problems at all.  They all love to play together (with the occasional girl fights, but we're working on that) and Aubrey especially loves pretending that she's Alexandra's little mommy!

Alexandra has the best little personality and keeps us cracking up with her facial expressions and her laugh!