Class Valentines

I've long wanted to get in on the melted crayon mold fun that's all over Pinterest and the blogosphere and we've finally done it for Valentine's Day!

Lucas has been saving up broken crayons all school year (and perhaps breaking a few on purpose--that silly kid!) and I purchased a silicone heart pan. The hardest part was peeling all the little papers and after that it was a blast to arrange the crayons in the hearts, bake and admire the creations!

Then I discovered this awesome free printable from The Long Thread. They say "Have a colorful Valentine's Day" at the bottom! I'm the queen of enjoying all the wonderful free printables that designers share on their blogs. My trick is to upload them to Staples.com and have them printed in color on card stock. It's cheap and so easy--plus the quality is always great.

Over the past few days, Lucas has been writing his classmates names and his name, then we taped the card to the front of little treat bags, dropped in a crayon heart, tied them up and viola! Fun Valentine's for his class!

 

I'm pretty sure we're all looking forward to having enough crayon nubs to make another batch!

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Nathaniel Turned 3!

Way-too-quickly after Christmas -- as in, we barely got our Christmas decorations down in time for his party! -- Nathaniel turned 3!

This boy is the light of our lives! I surmise that because he barely uttered a sound until about 9 months ago, he spent the first 2+ years of his life developing the most expressive facial and body movements ever seen in such a young child. When he's happy, he doesn't just smile, his entire head lights up and his back straightens and he seems to literally jump with excitement! When he's sad or moping, he doesn't just get a down-turned face, he hangs his head and droops his shoulders and does this crazy, lumbering walk while his arms droop and swing.

And nearly every day over the past nine months, Nathaniel has amazed and delighted us with his new-found words, expressions and songs. He is amazing! (Oh, and also a genius, of course. I mean, really a genius!!)

We had small celebrations with our little family for Naffy's first and second birthdays and for his third -- the first birthday he really, truly "got" -- we had a really wonderful party.

Nathaniel's birthday was on a Friday and our party was going to be that Saturday. But, I wanted to do something to help make his actual day special.

Inspired by a few posts on Oh Happy Day, Lucas and I made this little party hats and ribbon neckties for our dino collection. They greeted Nathaniel at his seat on his birthday morning.

Lucas was pretty pleased with our work!

Panda-cakes are Nathaniel's favorite breakfast (food in general, actually!) so he enjoyed a stack of three pancakes topped with sprinkles and a candle on this birthday morning!

For our BIG celebration on Saturday, we decided to fill the day with Nathaniel's favorite things. There's nothing this boy loves more than WATER! We invited a few families to join us at a local indoor pool for some fun time splashing!

After an afternoon break to give the littles time for a nap, we invited those friends back to our house for a good old-fashioned birthday party filled with playtime, pizza and cupcakes!

Using things we had around the house, I was just thrilled with the little table scape I put together while Nathaniel was napping and Abel was on the pizza and beer run! (If you have a Wegman's nearby, they sell these awesome sheets of pizza which serve 32!)

When Nathaniel woke up, I told him it was time to put on his fancy clothes, to which he immediately replied, "Spiderman!!!" That wasn't exactly what I meant, but why not let the birthday boy wear whatever he wants? I dug out his Halloween costume and he couldn't have been happier!

Does it get any better than this? I don't think so!

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Missing Susan

From The DC Moms

After she died, it took me a long time to write about Susan. And now, suddenly and far-too-long at the same time, she has been gone for an entire year. I did lose count of how many moons it's been since she died, but whenever I look up and see the moon--full or just a sliver--I think of her. So, so often, I think of her. I didn't know Susan as well as so many others. I only knew her for a few years before she died. But she touched my life forever. And I am so, so grateful that I may have touched hers just a bit as well.

I miss you, Susan. I love you, Susan.

As we honor Susan’s memory, please consider furthering her legacy through a contribution to the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation. 

Link to Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation: http://www.ibcresearch.org/

Link to Susan’s Toddler Planet site: http://toddlerplanet.wordpress.com/

Please join bloggers throughout the web in honoring Susan Niebur's life and contributions with a post, and please add your link below.

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Spelling Practice

We've had this magnetic wall and alphabet magnets for several years, but other than the magnets getting batted off the wall at every opportunity, they don't get much use. You see, although we followed the directions and put at least three (or was it four?) coats of magnetic paint on the walls, they barely hold lightweight magnets and you can forget holding up a piece of paper.

Recently, as I was struggling to engage Lucas in the practice of his spelling words (homework is a huge struggle every. single. day.), a light bulb went off.

We ran downstairs and pretended to be on the Electric Company -- pulling the letters down to form words. Yay for our magnetic wall! Yay for alphabet magnets! They certainly make spelling practice a lot more fun -- for both of us!


Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

2012 Resolutions: Review

Better late than never, I thought I'd take a moment to review my 2012 resolutions. Last year is one of the first years I actually made several resolutions and overall, I'm happy with my success.

Initially I was going to go through each resolution one by one, but I even started to get bored with the post! Instead, I'll expand on my two most successful and enjoyable resolutions:

Do Creative Things

I feel really successful on this one! I completed several creative projects throughout the year and by letting myself splurge on the purchase of some washi tape, I've had fun doing little things that are creative as well. I can't paint or draw, but I do feel that I am a creative person and it's been a lot of fun to encourage that in myself!

Mail Birthday Cards

This was my most successful resolution to date! I have mailed dozens of birthday cards and birthday postcards over the year and the response has been wonderful! One friend mentioned that it was the only mailed card she received! A neighbor told me that the card made his week! Plus, I love an excuse to be on the look out for cute stationary! Decorating the envelopes with small pen flourishes or washi tape has also helps with #1! I must add a disclaimer, however, that I did miss a few entire months, so if you didn't receive a card (and are someone I know IRL!) please don't feel bad -- it was probably one of my off months!

I enjoyed these so much that I'm continuing those into 2013! Here's to creative things and birthday cards!



Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

Lucas Turned 7!

I'm not sure where January went, but I'm still catching up on December!!
  

We celebrated Lucas's 7th Birthday in Ohio this year. It falls just a few days before Christmas, so we've always been away for his actual birthday. After Nathaniel's birthday, however, Lucas declared that he wanted to be home for his birthday next year. I figured that was coming sooner or later, and really, who can blame him?

He did have a pretty fun day, though!

Lucas has been begging for a Chuck E. Cheese birthday and got it in his head that he was definitely going to have a party at Chuck E. Cheese this year. There's a Chuck E. Cheese in my in-law's town, so it was definitely doable. Of course, we felt bad that he wouldn't have any friends there with him, so we invited a neighbor that Lucas plays with whenever we're visiting Ohio. Unfortunately he couldn't join us. Lucas was a little bummed, but was okay with it.

We arrived in Ohio the night before his birthday, after one of our worst drives ever. So it was around 11pm before I started planning the party via my iPhone. I had figured we'd just go and buy some pizza and tokens. But, Abel insisted that Lucas was expecting the entire Chuck E. Cheese shebang. I was panicking for a little while, but it all worked out perfectly. (Can we hear it for the iPhone!?)

I discovered that you can book a birthday party for as few as four children! Plus, by booking on-line, you get extra bonus tokens. Of course we only had two children and the hostess was a little confused when we told her we were all there, but it was fantastic. Lucas got the full birthday party treatment -- blow up crown, attention from the Rat himself (oh, is he a mouse? Hmmmmm!) and--the be all end all--a minute in the ticket blaster! Plus, Abel and I happily gave the boys our birthday party tokens, so they both enjoyed a lot of games.

And, let me tell you, the Saturday before Christmas is the BEST time to visit. It was approximately 1/4 the madhouse that it usually is! Later that night we celebrated again with cup cakes. It was a really fun day!

Lucas continues to be the boy who wears his heart on his sleeve. It was such a joy to watch his excitement and pure delight that day at Chuck E. Cheese. We all bask in his warm emotions--this is the boy who still tells me that he loves me about 100 times each day. He exclaims it and whispers it. He wears all his other emotions on his sleeve as well. As Abel reminded me recently, when I was getting very frustrated with how vocal he is about getting upset: we can't expect to have one without the other. And I definitely don't want to ever give up Lucas's all-encompassing love. We are all so, so lucky to have him for our own.



Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!

GMC Road Trip + Holiday Kindness

I was offered such a fun opportunity over the holidays -- GMC's Northeast team lent us a brand new and totally decked out GMC Terrain Denali for about a week. And, for a bonus, the offered me $50 to spend on random acts of holiday kindness while we had the vehicle.

Lucas and I picked out various snacks and I found these awesome Road Trip Survival Kit printables (agh! I am so sorry, I can not find my source for these!) (double agh! I can't get the image to flip!), including the cute outer label, a license plate game and a roadtrip checklist game (to check off items as you see them). We also included a bonus for the parents -- a gift card for gas!

Lucas enjoyed helping me to assemble them, but was pretty dismayed when I told him that none of the bags were for us to keep. Rather, we were going to give them out to other travelers at a rest stop.

He was pretty bummed out about the news that he wasn't going to get to enjoy any of the goodies and I was a little nervous that our random acts of kindness were going to totally backfire with some spoiled behavior.

But, when we pulled into the South Mountain Rest Area on 1-70, Lucas was nearly accosting folks in his excitement about giving out the packages. In fact, after we'd given them all out, he exclaimed, "I wish we had even MORE to give out!"

Score one for kindness being infectious!

Back to the Terrain, we LOVED it! The pick-up (hello Detroit muscle power!) and inside amenities were incredible (I'm still missing those leather, heated seats!). As you can see, we encountered a snowstorm on our road trip and Abel and I were incredibly impressed with its handling in some pretty slick and rough weather.

Perhaps the best part, though, was when we unloaded the car seats into my parents car and headed back to Maryland to enjoy New Year's Eve without kids! The SUV was a little too small to be our main family vehicle since the kids are still in a car seat and booster, but Abel and I would love to have it as our second vehicle, where that lovely interior would have a chance at a crumb-free existence!

Goodbye lovely Terrain! We miss you already!

The GMC Northeast team loaned me a GMC Terrain Denali and a full tank of gas. They also reimbursed us for the $50 we spent on our Holiday Acts of Kindness as part of a promotion with TheDCMoms. I was not compensated in any other way for this post. All opinions and ideas are my own.

Original post by Smiling Mama. Thanks for reading!