Friday, February 14, 2014

Valentine Love

It is Valentine's Day!  

I totally heart this holiday.  

I mean, I like wine and chocolate and sappy cards and massages.

Those things are often included with Valentine's Day (Notice I 
said massages, babe.  Subtle hints are welcome, right?).

Those are the things I like, but a dear friend said she'd rather get a donut or lasagna.  

Or a coke.  

I guess this is what her ideal Valentine's Day would look like.  


Lucky for her, I'm pretty sure her girlfriend knows her 
well enough to get her just the right thing on V-day.  

{I may or may not be semi-stalking their Facebook pages, waiting to see what Ms. Donut-And-A-Coke's girlfriend came up with.  I know what Donut-And-A-Coke got for her and I am positive she is going to LOVE it!}

I had another close friend who had donuts as the late night snack at his wedding.

Donuts and beer?!

I was so happy I could hardly stand myself.  

I know I took a picture and posted it to Instagram, 
Facebook, Twitter, WedPics, all of it.  

 I was THAT excited about it.  

But now I can't find the picture.  

Sad face.

This one pretty much shows our excitement about donuts and beer, though.



Know what other picture I can find from that wedding?

This one.  


Yes, that is Dennis Rodman and The Hubs.  

He was sitting outside of our hotel, smoking a cigar, at eight in the morning.

They had a really strange conversation and then we were on our way.

NONE of that has anything to do with the point of this post, however. 

Back to Valentine's Day...

More than the stuff (and that is really all it is), I love celebrating love.  

It doesn't have to be romantic love.

It can be loving family, friends, your children's teachers, whomever.

I try to be sure I include all of those folks when sharing our Valentine cards.

And the Valentine cards are one of my most favorite parts! 

I talked about Valentine's Day and showed you 
their cards two years ago in this post.  

Evidently I didn't show you last year's card, though.  

Here it is: 


Aren't they the cutest?!

I love their cards so much that I have them hanging in my office and at the house.  

I wanted to try the idea I'd seen on Pinterest this year, though.

I adored the pictures of people holding candy and thought the boys would like them, too.

So, I took their pictures with them holding a fist in front of them.  

You have NO idea how difficult it can be to get a three year-old and a five year-old to hold an arm up in front of them, not drop the arm, not put the fist in front of their face, not stare at the fist rather than the camera, not forget they are suppose to be making a fist, not wiggle their butts because they think what they are doing is silly, and get them to smile.  

It took a few tries, but we managed it.

The beginning pictures were not great.



I mean, the kids are cute, but that is pretty much where the cute ends.

And, let's be real here.  
I never claimed to be a photographer.
That is evidenced by all the lovely shadows.
{Colby, Jenn, Ash... I'm thinking of you photogs here.  Try not to gag at my sad skills.}

You can also see all the handsome black marks on our walls due to 
them becoming race tracks for the boys' trucks.  

Awesome.

All it took was a little editing with PicMonkey and the black marks were gone.

Throw in heart overlays, a little pink tint for the big kid, 
a pink border for the little guy, some text and, voila!
You don't notice the terrible photography skills.
Or, if you do, just lie to me. 

Boom.  The cutest darned Valentine's Day cards ever.



Once I got the prints back, all I needed was a cutting board and my X-acto knife.

I cut slits at the top & bottom of their fists, slipped a 
sucker through the holes, and they were ready to go!



Bonus: Walgreens was having a sale on both 4x6 prints AND V-day candy.  

I scored 80 pictures plus suckers to go with all of the cards for less than 20 bucks.  
I say that it pretty good for something so adorable.

Sidenote: I know.  Eighty sounds crazy.  But, we attended a Valentine party with 20 kiddos, then had Goose's school, Tink's kindergarten & after-school program, all of their teachers, family, and a couple of friends to give cards to! I should have taken a picture of the multiple gallon-size freezer bags I filled.  It was nuts.  The good news is that they were super easy and really quick to put together, so it didn't take too long.

Sidenote to the Sidenote:  If you drink red wine while putting your kids' Valentine's Day cards together, you will secretly hope to never finish the task because then you'd have to do something productive and stop drinking wine.  See?  You just need to figure out how to make something as enjoyable as possible.  Or, does drinking wine makes it extra productive?

We are off subject again. Anyway...

I didn't want the grown-ups to have suckers with their pictures, though.   

I knew most of them would want to hang them up.

The problems would be:

1) The suckers would be too heavy and,

2) If they actually ate the suckers, the pictures wouldn't make much sense.

So, I decided to make flowers out of pipe cleaners to put in their hands instead.

I LOVE THEM.



It took me a few tries to get the sizing right and not have really lop-sided flowers, 
but once I got it figured out they were super easy.  

The boys were really excited about them, too.

However, I think it may have been just because they wanted the suckers.

Whatever.

No matter what it is that makes you smile... 

Suckers, chocolate, hugs, friendship, romance, or donuts and a coke... 

just be sure to find a reason to enjoy the day.  

Even better, give someone else a reason to smile.

Share the LOVE.  

Happy Valentine's Day.

Thursday, February 13, 2014

If I Had to Guess Who Was Lying...

Have you ever wondered what it is like to raise a really smart, really ornery little boy?  

Wonder no more.  

This is a perfect example of the things we hear from him on a daily basis.



Goose: Mommy, can I have more apples?

Me: No, baby, I don't have any more apples. 

Goose: Yes, I think you do. 

Me: No, Goose. I do not. You and your brother ate them all. 

Goose: It not ok that you lie. Give me the bag. I gonna check it. Lying is bad, mama. 

Me: Maybe you should apply the "lying is bad" concept to your own life. You've had a rough time with that recently. 

Goose: RAAAAAAAAWWWWWWR!!!!! I T-REX!!!!!!

Me: Well, hopefully T-Rex doesn't have the same issues with lying that Aiden has.

Goose: Mommy, just give me the apples. 


And that is a normal conversation in the car, on the way to preschool.

This kid is lucky I love him as much as I do.  



P.S.  In case you are wondering, yes, I laughed.  
BUT, I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from making any noise 
and I adjusted the rearview mirror to be sure he couldn't see me.  

He doesn't need to know how funny I think he is.  :)