Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm a day late posting this but I thought I'd go ahead and post a few ideas so that you can use them next year.  You can never be too prepared right??  These are the cards that my girls passed out this year in class.  I had them press printed at the place I get my photos developed and they are 5x7 front and back.  They were super easy to put together because they are templates sold by Madison Ave Photography.  I think she created these maybe two  years ago?  Not sure f she still sells them but if she does go find yourselves the set.  They are too cute and they even come with booksmarks that you could make for the class to coordinate with the cards.  Fun!

Izzy and Emily both had parties in their classes yesterday and both of them were keeping it pretty simple with small snacks.  I was scrambling last minute to find something fun to send with Izzy to school.  Luckily I check out Jessica's post over at Little Pumpkin Grace, one of my favorite blogs, and she had posted an idea she found on pinterest.  Target was selling these cute bubbles with heart tops in all sorts of fun Valentine colors. Of course I couldn't find them at 4 pm the day before Valentine's Day!  I remembered seeing some white ones at Hobby Lobby before in the wedding section so we headed there and found a pack of 36 and on SALE!  Ding ding!

I printed these on cardstock, forgot to add a pretty colored border but no redoing that last minute, and I sewed on embroidery floss to the them.  Tied tubes of bubbles to the cards and we had an instant little inexpensive gift to go with the cards.

For Emily's class we bought inexpensive coloring books and I tied on packs of crayons.  I figured parents have enough of candy and it seems like we ended up with more sweets than Halloween!  I know I always appreciate a good book or coloring book to take with us to restaurants and in the car.

38 presents all ready to go! and it didn't take too much time to put together.

Of course Izzy didn't decide to tell me that she was allowed free dress day until 8 pm that night as she was going to bed.  I had already planned on having Emily wear a little deco jean set made long ago by ribbons and ruffle boutique that Izzy modeled and has since been passed down to Emily.  Some may say why make a new outfit, just send her to school but the guilt of sewing all these Valentine dresses for my customers and not for my own children ate at me.  I ended up making a coordinating outfit for Izzy.

Oh, and those of your who have been interested in lunches I did do a small themed lunch knowing she was going to have a big snack during their party that day.  Here it is.

I hope all of your had a special Valentine's day surrounded by those you love most!

This weekend we took a little drive over to San Antonio.  As with all road trips I am a little obsessed with the thought of what are we going to eat??  I hate stopping at gas stations for junk (you know the candy bars, bags of cheetohs, candy, etc.) or having to pull over at a Mickey D's and your choice is fried chicken nuggets or a sad looking burger that costs you a days worth of calories.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not a health nut who doesn't appreciate a little McNugget every now and then but eating like that on road trips can just "mess you up" for the day.  I decided to go ahead and pack some bento boxes for the girls the night before so they'd have a big choice of things to eat while we drove.  I thought I'd share to give others some ideas of what might be some good traveling foods.

This first box was Izzy's.  I went ahead and labeled everything.  I promise those are carrots and not cheese puffs.  The banana chocolate chip muffins recipe is from skinnytaste.com.  I took Gina's chocolate chocolate chip banana muffin recipe, and omitted the cocoa powder and glaze, and made them mini sized.  The chocolate marshmallows are between the size of a large one and mini ones and are new from Kraft.  I thought the girls would love them but apparently they aren't quite as tempting as they look.  Maybe if I made them into rice krispy treats?   The turkey pepperoni with cream cheese bites are made from taking turkey pepperoni and spreading about half a teaspoon of low fat cream cheese and folding it over like a taco.  I wasn't sure if Izzy would like those but they were a hit which means I can add them to her list of lunch items.

Emily had a similar box but a smaller version.  She threw a fit over the fact that I snuck a piece of cheese into it. The girl claims to hate cheese and will only eat string cheese, yet loves everything I make when I sneek cheese into it.  You just can't say it's cheese!  She also got a cereal bar which I thought would make for a good breakfast on the run.

One of our stops in San Antonio was having lunch with Clay's grandmother, whom I absolutely love and call grandmommy.  My girls call her great grandmommy or sometime just "Great" for short, very fitting of a spectacular woman.  

Great has the most beautiful soul and is smarter and sharper than anyone you will ever meet.

Clay will probably hate me forever for putting this photo out there, he always does whenever I share a photo of him on the internet, but here he is with his sweet grandmother.

And here I am.  Her mink is fabulous isn't it?  Looking good Great!

Don't know what keeps your kids busy at restaurants but our Leapster Explorer sure has helped us out a lot recently.  This restaurant even had Etch a Sketch's for their tiny guests.  How fun!

The last part of out trip was attending a service for a dear friend's mother.  Rather than having a funeral or a memorial service it was called a Celebration of Life.  It is something they believed their mother would have wanted and I have to say it was a perfect tribute to her. After the service the celebration continued with a good spread of food and a wonderfully loud mariachi band.  I could just picture my friends' mother watching from above rejoicing in this celebration and being so joyous that her friends and family were celebrating the wonderful life she had.

Hope you all have a wonderful week!

Saturday Morning Cartoon

We received Kung Fu Panda 2 from Netflix yesterday and Clay and I plotted a little surprise this morning.  He went and picked up donuts from Shipley's and we had a little Saturday morning fun.

Can you guess which on my girls was most excited?

Yep!  Emily has a super sweet tooth and if notice she had a sprinkles in the first picture and a nut covered here...she's begging for a third.  Don't worry, we don't usually let her do this otherwise she might become a donut.

Snuggling up with Daddy, especially during the scary parts.

I LOVE our new aqua colored console we got for Christmas!!!  Makes movie watching so much more fun.

This just might become a Saturday morning tradition!

Red Day!

Emily has been celebrating Valentine's Day at school all week.  I love how Miss Tina and Miss Judy will take a whole month to celebrate a holiday.  Makes it more for for the kiddos.  Tuesday was pink day and today was red, next Tuesday is white.  I made her lace cuffed shirt from a polka dot Target tee last year and some wide lace.  It's our version of the MJC shiver.  Got to have some color options right?

After school today I picked her up and she had her snack in the backyard before big sister came home.

Is there anything more tempting than a soft sugar cookie that's iced???  Maybe one in the shape of a heart and pink for a little girl.  I save all my Frappucino bottles to give the girls milk in.  There's something about drinking milk out of a glass bottle that makes it taste soooo good!

Tasty...

Mom, I LOVE this cookie!

That smile is thanks enough my little sweet pea. XOXO