Sledding Fun

Today we went sledding....

This guy never smiles!

Jasper ate some snow....



Overall it was a good day.

Valentine's Day Craftiness

This Valentine's day I think I kind of over extended myself.  After throwing Noah's birthday party on Sunday, I had to help do a craft at my mops group on Monday and then in the afternoon I went to Jack's kindergarten class and did a craft for the Valentine's day party.  I was up late the night before figuring out what to make, I was actually at a loss until about 10pm.  I had planned on making some robots and decorating them with candy (from the family fun website) but I really didn't like that one, would much rather do something without candy.  The other hurdle was to figure out something that the boys would like, afterall, Valentine's day is kinda girly...all that pink and red.  So, finally I landed on these.

When it comes to crafts, girls can be satisfied with something fun to look at, but boys really want to USE it.  It needs to do something or it's no good.  I was honestly a little surprised at how well these heart shaped glitter glasses went over!  It was such a hit, everyone in the class was wearing them.  It was so much fun!  And his teacher was snapping pictures of them all.  They all wore them home and Jack even wore his to the grocery store later on!  Anyway, it was really simple. 

All you need is:

1 piece of cardstock 3"x6.5"

2 pipe cleaners about 5" long

glitter and glue if you have them, or whatever you want to decorate them with

Just fold the cardstock in half.  Then fold each side in half again and starting at the center side cut out 1/2 of a heart.  Then cut around the outside of that heart to make the outer shape.  Unfold and punch two holes, one in each side where you can then stuff the pipe cleaner through for the earpieces.  Decorate them however you want and when you're ready to put them on just form the pipe cleaners around the child's ears.  I guess you could make these in any shape too! 

The other fun thing I did this Valentine's day was these valentine's cards for the boys to take to school.  If you know my kids at all, you know that they are obsessed with Star Wars.  I looked all lover the web for Star Wars printable valentines but couldn't find them at all.  Finally I realized that valentine's are just a picture with some words anyway so I just imported some cute pictures and wrote on them.  This is what I ended up with.  If you want them you can just right click and save them!

Happy Birthday Noah!

Happy birthday to Noah!  He turned 4 on February 15th.  It's hard to believe that he's already 4!  He started talking about having his birthday party at Alta this last summer.  Almost every week during the winter the boys head up to Alta (one of our ski areas) and go skiing.  It's great because they have a great deal - it's free after 3pm...that's my kinda price!  Anyway, it's perfect becuase the Sunnyside lift stays open until 4:30, pretty much the perfect amount of time for a 4 and 6 year old to practice their stuff.  Mark has been taking the boys since Jack was about 3 - he's braver than me!  Needless to say, they are both great little skiers.  The only thing we need now is some good ski buddies for them.  That's why we agreed with Noah, that would be an ideal place for his birthday party! 

Being a mom of all boys, I find ways to get a little crafty here and there.  There aren't any ruffles in our household, unless they're on me:)  So, when a birthday comes around I like to indulge in some creativity.  This year I made some super fun party hats out of scrapbook paper (around here that's about all it gets used for...I'm a horrible scrapbooker!).  A space/airplane theme emerged when I found some Paul Frank party stuff on sale at Target (I'm a total sucker for monkeys - strange I know). 

One of my favorite things to do for my kid's parties is put together the little favor bags.  I LOVE putting little gift packages and sets together.  This year I made the gift bags out of some felt I had sitting around.  I appliqued little planets on the front and put some ribbon handles on.  They were stuffed full of goodies like parachutte army men, gel stickers, die cast cars etc.  The best part was NO candy!:) 

We ate pizza and french fries....in honor of Noah's skiing techniques!  The funny part was it didn't dawn on him until we were headed home, when he said "Hey!  We make pizzas and french fries with our skis and that's what we ate at my party!!".  That's right buddy! 

These guys drew quite a bit of attention as they headed down the mountain with their party helmets!  It was a great day overall.  All the parents were thrilled, most of the kids had never skied before and no one (seriously - no one) had a meltdown or even a sad face!!  Oh, I forgot to mention it was almost in the 60's!!  When we got home, our temperature gauge at the house read 65 degrees...unbelieveable.  We couldn't have asked for a better day!