House of Estrogen

Happy Balentine's Day!

I think my favorite part of today was listening to Addie wish everyone a Happy Balentine's Day, talk about her Balentine's Day party at school, and to see how excited she was about all the Balentines she received. I doubt next year will be Balentine's Day, so I'm enjoying it while I can.

The last two years, we have put a lot of time and effort into the girls' Valentines for school. Two years ago, we did the iPod Valentines. Last year, we upped the ante with the iPhone Valentines. This year, I had no time or energy for anything complicated. I needed cheap, easy, and quick. Hello Pinterest! I found these great glow stick valentines on the Teacher Wife Blog complete with a free printable. Bingo!  Glow bracelets are 15 for a dollar in Target's Dollar Spot. For six bucks, I got enough for all three kids classes. 

 

I hope Addison's friends enjoyed their Balentines from Abbison and Appison!

For the first time ever, I decided to attempt heart hairdos. I have always admired these but never actually attempted them.

Elise's hair is short enough that there weren't a lot of options. I went with this little side heart. I think it has potential, but I definitely need more practice. She liked it, but apparently she took it out on the bus on the way to school when Nina told her it looked ugly. Gotta love little sisters.

For Addie, I went with the braided heart. It turned out OK, but her hair wasn't quite long enough to really do it properly.

Nina's hair is the longest, and I think hers definitely turned out the best. Fun, huh?

I hope all of you had a wonderful Balentine's Day!

I Just Called to Say I Love You

Elise's teacher from last year stopped her in the hall recently and asked, "So Elise, how are you going to top the iPod Valentines from last year?"  The answer is obvious, right? What's better than an iPod? An iPhone, of course!

 

Aren't these fun? I'd love to take credit as the creative mind behind these, but I can only claim the printing, cutting, taping, and gluing. Amy over at Living Locurto designed these bad boys and provided a free printable! (Click on that link to check out her pictures... they are so much better than mine. I had the wrong lens on my camera for this sort of picture.)

 

Anyway, when I saw these on her website, I thought to myself, "I don't have enough going on right now between work and Girl Scout cookie sales, I still have all that free time between midnight to 2 a.m. We definitely need to make homemade Valentines this year."  That, my friends, is how I found myself with a paper cutter and a stack of candy hearts in front of the TV at midnight the night before Valentine's Day. Awesome.

 

I was pretty sure iPods wouldn't have the same wow factor with the preschool set that they did at the elementary school. I needed to do something different for Addison, so I took this picture just before the sun went down on Feb. 13,

 

added some text, printed a bunch, and stuck lollipops through them. Voila - Valentines! Cute, eh?

 

No, those weren't my idea either... just another inspiration taken from the Internet. I love that my Google skills can make me look like one of those creative, crafty moms. I mean who comes up with that - sticking the lollipop right through the hand in the photograph? So simple, yet so fun!

I hope all of you had a nice Valentine's Day and got a little more sleep than I did!