Everything Under the Son

I have adjusted some of my settings in hopes that anyone can leave a comment now. For some reason, it was set to only allow people with Google accounts to leave comments. I think I have that fixed, and anyone who wants to can leave comments! :)

Let me know if it still does not work for you! :)

As promised, here are some pictures of the surprise that was waiting for my sweet Valentines this morning. Last night, after the kids were asleep, Nathaniel helped me, or rather I helped Nathaniel to crepe paper the doorways to their bedrooms. It was so fun to string that stuff up...we knew they would love it!

Of course, I didn't stop there! I also cut hearts out of some construction paper I had in the office. I wrote different things I love about them, and then attached a small fun size piece of candy to each heart. I taped them on their doors so they would see them when they got up this morning! I even made some hearts to put on our bedroom door for Nathaniel!

Here are some pictures:











It was so fun to hear them this morning...surprised and so happy. This was such a simple thing to do, it didn't take much time at all. One of the best parts was that it was super special for them, and super cheap for me. Total, this project cost me less than $5, and it could have been free had I opted to leave out the candy, but their joy was priceless!

What about you? What fun surprise did you have for your valentines, or what surprise did they have for you?

Based on the small number of comments on my last post, I am beginning to wonder if anyone is still reading here! I decided that since Valentines' Day is on Sunday, I would make a small and incomplete list of the many things that I love...Pioneer Woman inspired me to do this, and I am encouraging you to do the same!

Here goes...some things I love:

Jesus
Hubby - Nathaniel
Chinese food
Clean socks
Natalie
Scrapbooking
Being at home
Singing
Levi
My Sister - Kellye
Poetry
Date-Night
Little House on the Prairie
Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Crafting
Horses
The Sound of Music
Cowboy Boots
Hope and Carson
Fresh washed towels
Lip Gloss
My parents
Cozy Blankets
Being a stay-at-home mommy
Sunshine
Singing...oops! I think that's on here twice! :)
Long Eyelashes
A new haircut


...and the list could go on and on! What about you...what do you love?

I love finding unique ideas, and when I found this idea on another blog, I knew it was for me! I was so excited to gather my supplies and get started making these adorable name valentines.

Here are the cast of characters:



Assorted Valentine Paper (or any paper really!)
Scissors
Double Sticky Tape
Pencil
Letter Stickers (You can find these in the scrapbook section of the store)
Black or White Cardstock
Pretzel Bags (Missing from the picture)
Ribbon (Missing from the picture...hey, I'm not perfect!)
Hershey Nuggets Candy


First, you will want to cut your paper into strips to wrap the candy. Mine ended up being about 1"x2". I used double sided paper because it was what I had, but you wouldn't necessarily have to.



Then, use the double sticky tape to wrap the Hershey Nuggets with the strips of paper. It will look like this:





Keep cutting the strips and wrapping your candy until you have a good sized stack:





Then, count out the number of candies you need, and attach the letter stickers, one per candy, spelling out the recipient's names.

Cut the cardstock into strips approximately 2 1/2" wide and 8 1/2" long. Use the double stick tape to secure your wrapped candies to the cardstock strip. It will look like this:






Then, simply slide the strip with the candies into a pretzel bag, and use your ribbon to tie up the top!




Voila!! Adorable, personalized Valentine Treats! I love these, and more importantly, Natalie loves them and cannot wait to give them to her teachers and friends :)

I LOVE rainy days! There is something wonderful about a day at home, listening to the rain fall outside. Maybe it is because it doesn't rain much in my neck of the woods, but it is certainly a wonderful day for me when there is water falling from the sky.

Today is one of those days.

My daughter is finally on the mend, her fever is finally gone! Sunday afternoon, after two days of high fever, I took her to our pediatrician's office and saw the on-call doctor who diagnosed Natalie with BOTH strep throat and the flu. Yes, things have not been fun around here for the last few days...6 to be exact, but who's counting. Today, the fever is gone and we are waiting out the 24-hour fever free time frame so she can return to school tomorrow. Yay for her...and for me!

Since she is feeling better, she and Levi have been enjoying the day, playing, laughing, and pretending to have school. She loves to be his teacher, and she is really good at it! While they have been playing, I have been dreaming. No, I haven't been asleep, but I have been dreaming of my little home office. I have big plans for it in the coming weeks, so I have made some sketches of what I would like to see. EXCITING! Here is a little sneak peek:

As you all have probably read, last week was my wedding anniversary. Seeing as it fell at the end of the month (I should have planned that better!), I needed something meaningful, yet cheap...and by cheap I mean free!

I had run across this cute idea last year, and it jumped into my head, so I ran with it!

I made a Deck of Love Cards! Check 'em out:





Here are the cast of characters...





One deck of old playing cards (I chose red)
Some paper
A pen or marker (if you hand-write your reasons)
A glue stick (oops, I left that out of the picture!)
A hole punch
Some curling ribbon
Scissors (to cut the curling ribbon)


Here we go....I first made up a list of 52 reasons why I love Nathaniel. Some of the reasons are funny like "I love you because you love chinese food!", and some of the reasons are more serious like "I love you because you love Natalie." You could certainly handwrite these on your paper, but I opted to use different fonts, and print them out on my computer. Either way is fine, just go with what you prefer.

Then, I cut the reasons into small rectangles that would fit on the cards. I used the glue stick to glue them on the cards, making sure you could still see the face value of the card. I'm not sure why that was important to me, but it was. It's not like we will ever actually play cards with this deck, but I still wanted to be able to see the face value of the cards anyway. Silly type-A me!






After I had attached all of the 52 Reasons, I then punched a hole in the top corner of every card, making sure to use my first card as a pattern. The cards won't lay as nicely on your ribbon if you don't have all the holes in the same spot!

After the 52 reasons were placed and the holes were punched, I used my curling ribbon to make a ring through the holes. You could use the small ring clips if you prefer, but I like the festive look of the curling ribbon, and again, I was going for free!

On the front of the first card, I used some scrapbook letters that I already had to put "I Luv U". It just added a little something I thought!



And...voila, a fun, meaningful, and basically free gift for my sweetie. He loved it by the way! The cool thing is, with 52 cards in a deck, he has the perfect number of cards to flip to a new one each week for a whole year...fancy math, yes? Of course he flipped through the entire deck right away, but he can keep it in his bedside table drawer and take a look anytime he wants to!

Even though I made this project for my anniversary, it would be perfect to make for Valentines Day, too! So get started, and if you make this project, email me pictures so I can see how yours turned out! Remember, you can make it your own. Had I had a bigger budget for this project, I probably would have embellished each card a bit more with fun stickers, and even pictures on the ones that talked about our kids or family! How fun to also put candy wrappers, or a fortune from a fortune cookie on the one that talks about chinese food.



Remember that the sky is the limit, so use your imagination and make it personal for your sweetie! Besides, it's NEVER a bad day to say I love you!!

We are home for the next couple of days...Natalie is sick with the flu and strep throat so we are going to be staying in for a few more days in hopes to get her "good-and-well"!

Check back later for a special project that I made for Nathaniel for our anniversary, but it would be perfect to make for your sweetie on Valentines! The best part is that it is virtually free to make if you have a few simple things around the house, but it turns out oh.so.cute!

Check back later for pictures and a tutorial on how to make it!