More Handmade Valentines

Oliver Has been enjoying his crayon's lately. It seems as though once he turned four he decided that all the "white" space of the paper needs to be filled in. He sat down one evening and colored one sheet of paper for over an hour. Impressive. So when I suggested maybe we should color a few valentines for the mailman to deliver, he JUMPED at the idea. We made these five Valentine's hearts before bed one night- I think he spent a couple of hours making these. And he "wrote" on the envelopes: as he scribbled he said he was spelling "I love you, happy valentines day!"

The next day we made a special stop to drop all his notes in the mail box. He was so excited and kept asking when the mailman would come and get his letters.

Hope they all arrive safe and sound. Enjoy.

A handmade valentine

Oliver and I spent three weeks working on his Valentine for school. The teacher asked us to make just one Valentine for the class and they would exchange one for one with their friends. I thought it would be fun to let him sew, since he's always asking to use my machine and other craft tools while I'm creating.

We didn't spend any money and were able to spend 5 minutes here, ten minutes there (whenever he was interested) working on it together. It was a challenge for me not to pick it up and finish it myself- but I didn't want to be that kind of parent- this was HIS valentine.

He choose the fabric, he wanted to add yarn (even though I thought it was finished) and he created it mostly himself. He also wanted to add a pocket shaped like an 'X' (without any promping from me) but then he changed his mind. I won't lie, I was there helping cause I'm not about to let a four year old use my stuff without some assistance.

But now I kind of feel like no one is going to believe me about him making it, and that maybe I'm just one of "those parents" who tries too hard and does the work for my kid. Am I over thinking this a little too much, maybe... but I loved every minute crafting with my son. Who cares who believes me or not (I have photographic proof on my craft blog).

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

Long awaited Date night

Our last date night was almost 5 months ago. Eek. We "hired" one of the best overnight sitters around... Thanks Momadom (yup that's what I call my mom, a term of endearment. Sounds like a dinosaur name- and I LOVE dinosaurs, always have. I'm quirky like that)

Oh and Lucius learned a few new tricks at Mormor's. He learned how to climb on our old bouncy horse and then when we asked if he'd like to get down and have dinner his animated response was "NO! Ride Horse!". Two new words and the first time he has ever wanted to skip eating.

Thanks to Ten years of service, my office gave me a gift card to Manny's steak house. We enjoyed "free" $50 steaks... which doesn't happen everyday- and won't again for some time (unless some other gift card should happen to come our way).

After dinner, we went to top of the Foshay Tower- the only outdoor observation deck in the twin cities. The sun was just setting. We had the whole place to ourselves- so I had a little fun with my camera. I know it's kind of annoying sometimes, thank you Jerimy for putting up with me.

 Thank you for asking me that wonderful question 7 years ago!! I'd still say YES.

Because I love my camera

Lucius jumped in front of my camera while I was playing around with bokeh (blurry backgrounds). What I got was a super cute photo of my baby being himself. Love it when that happens.

And then because I was out taking photos of a new craft project I also got a few cute photos of Lucius. Turns out our garage could use a little touch up- excepting that I love the texture of the peeling paint.

New Family Routines

So a few weeks ago we decided that we'd establish a few nightly/ weekly family routines. Sunday's is free day- everyone entertains themselves and at the end of the day we all sit down to play a game or two.

Daily, we've been spending a half hour after dinner having quiet reading time. The boys grab books and I sit down to read a book too (leading by example). It's been really nice. Plus its a good challenge for me to read more books for myself. We've been taking more trips to the library and spending a lot of lovely time as a family reading.

Meeting an Author

The last time we meet a children's book author was when Oliver was a baby. Today we went down to the Red Balloon Book store to meet Author Anna Dewdney of the Llama Llama book series. Oliver memorized this book and then "reads" it back to Lucius. Super cute.

Oliver did a pretty good job waiting- we got to the store early to make sure we got a good spot. Luckily there weren't as many people this time. She read two of her books, drew a picture of Llama Llama and the signed everyone's books. We ended up getting the FIRST number for the book signing. Hooray. But by the time Anna signed our books Little Man was kind of grumpy.

Hopefully he'll remember it was a fun Marmee and Oliver adventure!

Quotables: Pez...

Some of the best distractions/ toys are the ones from my high school childhood days that I somehow thought I needed to save- we call them treasures. The little misters latest find: "can we play with those things that pull their necks up?"

 

 

My old PEZ dispenser collection.