All about Hearts & Love~2012

For Valentine's Day, we focused on love. The love of God and the love in our family 

and the world. 

We had a lot of fun!

Our library books for the week.

Ce Ce {20 months} sorting hearts by color. 

We made these heart-shaped crayons. The girls love using them!! 

You can see the tutorial here.

Ce Ce scooping conversation hearts.

One of our Bible Verses for the week.

Red Valentine's day homemade play dough.

Of course, the love of Jesus is the best love of all!

I put together this Valentine's Day play dough tray. I used an old chocolate candy tray, a heart-shaped cookie cutter and chocolate homemade play dough.
I modified this recipe by adding a couple packets of instant hot chocolate---it worked perfectly!

The girls LOVE this activity!!

The girls role played delivering the chocolates to the nursing home:)

I think it is time for us to make another visit to the nursing home.

I made a very special Valentine's Day dinner for my wonderful husband. 

We made heart-shaped cupcakes for our homeschool Valentine's party.

It was so simple-just insert a marble in the baking pan. 

I took the cupcakes and let the kids frost and decorate them at the party. 

It was a huge hit!

Some of the kids in our homeschool group. 

We really enjoyed the Valentine's Day party!

We made french toast with powdered sugar hearts on top:)

I made a potato into a heart stamp. 

The girls loved using the potato to stamp red, glittery hearts.

We have always used Baby Sign Language.
This craft shows how to say "I love you" in Sign Language.

Jesus loves you and so do I!
Blessings,
Aria:)

Melted Heart Crayons {Tutorial} for Valentine's Day!

I have always loved the shaped crayons on the market, but just could not ever justify the high price. I have seen these heart shaped crayons before and decided to give them a whirl in preparation for Valentine's Day!

 Step 1: Preheat oven to 275 degrees. I then pulled out our box of extra, loose, broken and mismatched crayons. I remembered melting crayons before and using the "cheap" brands. PLEASE DO NOT DO THIS!!  Use Crayola crayons for the best results.

I gave the cheap crayons to the baby to draw with:)

 Then, I remembered what a PAIN it is to peel all the wrappers off, so I enlisted Elle's help:)

We both figured there HAD to be a better way and decided to Google it:) 

We found this very helpful video that shows how to cut the labels off. 

Easy Peezy!

Step 2: Remove all the labels and break up the crayons into smaller pieces.

 Step 3: Separate the colors into bowls, however you would like. We just randomly selected:)

 Step 4: Spray your heart shaped pans with cooking spray liberally and place the broken crayon pieces into each heart.  

Step 5: Place in the preheated oven and cook 10-15 minutes until the crayons are 

all melted and gorgeous!

{Side note: We used a silicone baking pan and it is floppy, so we placed it on a round baking sheet before putting it into the oven for added support.} 

 While waiting for the crayons to cool off, the girls decorated their Valentine's Boxes for their card exchange for our upcoming Homeschool Party with over 40 other kids!

 Aren't they beautiful?! We love how well they turned out!

And, as you can see, they write really smoothly as well!

Now...it's YOUR turn! Go turn those old, broken crayons into something beautiful!

Have fun preparing for Valentine's Day! 

There are tons of other great craft ideas on Pinterest!

If you need more ideas, here is how we approached Valentine's Day 2011 in a godly fashion and here you can see all of the fun food ideas I used last year on Valentine's Day! If you want to try an awesome strawberry bread, check out our recipe here. If you want to make a really neat heart-shaped bird feeder, check out our blog post here.

Blessings,

Aria:)

Our Valentine's Day 2011

We had a wonderful time over the past 2 weeks unfolding our new Valentine's Tradition.

Our girls really LOVED reading a daily Bible verse and sweet love note from us about one thing we love about each of them over the past 14 days!! Our focus has been on the TRUE and everlasting LOVE that only God can give. It has been a blessing for us and we hope you all have been inspired to weave the teachings of the love of God into your

Valentine's Day traditions as well!

Our Valentine's Day started out extra early so that I could get our special breakfast 

prepared before Daddy had to leave for work!

 We have been enjoying my gorgeous bouquet I received on Friday from my Sweet and loving husband:) He always promised to be "unpredictable" to me~~and he certainly delivers that quality:) He said, "everybody gets flowers ON Valentines' Day". LOL!! {Notice the little pink carnation for the girlz---they deserve to be spoiled, too}.

 I simply used small cookie cutters to make the watermelon into heart shapes.

 I tried to "fancy up" the girls oatmeal {similar to the Australian Fairy Bread we made for Australia Day}by adding sprinkles to it---but, it was a complete bust! Ha, ha. They like it  better "plain." oh well;)

 A heart shaped spinach quiche for my hubby with turkey sausage.

 Heart shaped pancakes--they were a huge hit!!

PLEASE, if you ever see my kids, do NOT tell them that syrup goes on pancakes, OK? 

They are perfectly content eating them dry, so please, don't ruin it for them, ha, ha. {Kinda like not ruining believing in Santa Claus for some kids--ok, just our secret--right?}

We had a very lovely breakfast together and sent Daddy off to work.

The girls and I had a great homeschool morning and then headed to Homeschool gym, had lunch and prepared for naps when I got the BEST SURPRISE EVER!! Daddy took off a half day, went grocery shopping and came home for naps so I COULD LAY DOWN AND TAKE A NAP ALL ALONE!!! Ahh, that man--I tell yah--I love him more every day!! It really is the little things, right? Let me tell you, I thoroughly enjoyed my nap and awoke refreshed and ready to cook a very special dinner for my loves.

 My homemade "Melting Pot" Spinach and Artichoke Fondue--yummy!!!

 Isn't this the cutest heart pasta ever? The girls LOVED it;-)!

 Chocolate Fondue for dessert.

 My hubby and I got so full on our fondue that we couldn't even eat the steak, chicken and shrimp we planned---so, we'll save it for a special dinner in a couple of days.

We had a wonderful dinner as a family!

We hope you all had a great Valentine's Day!

Here is the greatest Valentine of all from our family to yours!!

Blessings,

Aria:)