Valentine Crafts with Gabrielle

Last week Samantha and I worked on Valentines for her PMO class. This week was Gabrielle's turn. The weekend ended up being very busy and packed full of other activities so we were a bit last minute getting started on her class Valentines. Fortunately the ones we chose to do were fairly simple.

Gabrielle did not want to do butterflies just like Samantha's but wanted hearts instead. She said the Tootsie Roll pops looked like arrows in the hearts. 

The next ones were a little more time consuming but a good activity for teaching Gabrielle how to braid. We made friendship bracelets for all her school friends. I ended up making all of the bracelets for the Valentines myself but while I was braiding the bracelets, Gabrielle was practicing her braiding technique. She has the steps down but just needs more practice with keeping all three pieces taut.

Both Samantha and Gabrielle also worked on their Valentines they had picked out for Ed.

Can  you tell which bear belongs to which daughter? I was impressed with how well Samantha actually did for her age and considering her less than detailed approach to crafts.

Getting Crafty

I love crafts! I love creating whether it is sewing, paper crafts, drawing or digital design - I just love crafting and creating. Do you know what I love even more? Searching online for more brilliant ideas. Ha! But I have a confession to make. I have a mental list of what must be hundreds of "things to make", a fairly large stack of half-completed projects and probably an even larger pile of materials I purchased for certain projects but never even started!!

For 2012 I decided to set a goal of completing one project each month. I will not buy any materials for any project until I know I am going to sit down, start and finish the project. Well, it is February (already?!?!?) so theoretically I should be on my second project. Unfortunately my January project has not quite been completed. And yes, I went against the rules and bought all the materials, but actually I have a good excuse for not completing it yet and that is I, as well as both of the girls, got sick the week after I bought all of my materials. And then February arrived and I knew I needed to get the February project(s) done in a more  timely manner since they are Valentine's related.

Okay, enough of the rambling, the whole point of this post was supposed to be sharing my COMPLETED February projects.

Project #1 - Valentine Shirts for the Girls

When I saw this idea in my Family Fun magazine I knew I wanted to try these Adoily-able t-shirts for the girls. And here they are:

Projects 2 & 3: Valentine Cards (for Samantha's PMO friends)

One morning a week Samantha attends our church's Parents Morning Out, a cooperative childcare program. Samantha and I worked on her cards for her friends today. I wanted to keep them fairly simple. Samantha does not have the attention span to sit and color for too long or really sit and do anything for more than 10 minutes. Both of these projects were simple and took very little time for me to assemble.

Butterfly Tootsie Roll Pops - I found a template online here so these were a quick cinch. I printed them out, cut them out, inserted the tootsie roll pop and glued on some squiggly eyes.

Heart Crayons - These were super simple too but a little more time consuming with the prep work. We've been collecting our broken crayons for a while now but peeling the paper off these suckers is no easy task. Samantha seems to enjoy tearing the paper off crayons when I don't particularly want her to. I figured this would be the perfect job for her.

She did not disappoint. She sat for quite a while peeling her little heart out. After all the crayons were naked of paper I had to cut them all up into little pieces. I skipped this step the last time I made crayons and they did not turn out very well. My last batch of crayons, Gingerbread ones at Christmas, had huge chunks of un-melted crayons because the pieces had not started out the same size. Trust me, do not skip this step!!

This time the crayons turned out with much better results. The only thing I wish I could change is the color. I wish we had had more reds and pinks and purples but we had a lot of dark blues and even browns. I would have preferred them to be a little more vibrant and cheerful.

Not too bad for one afternoon! Gabrielle still needs to make her Valentines but since she loves crafting as much (maybe even more than) me I won't have nearly as much work to do on those. Maybe I'll finally get around to making my January project while she works on her Valentines this weekend.

Meatless Monday

I am trying out something new with our meals - one meatless dinner a week. Tonight was the first of this trial. Homemade tomato soup has been on my list of "recipes I'd like to try" and today was the day to finally try it out. I made roasted cherry tomato bisque with homemade Parmesan foccacia bread.

First I roasted the tomatoes and garlic with olive oil, salt, pepper and thyme. Then in a dutch oven added the tomatoes, garlic and all the liquid, some water and chicken broth and simmered for about 10 minutes. I pureed the soup in my food processor, returned the soup to the dutch oven and added half & half. I was supposed to add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar but was completely out. Did you know you can substitute 1 tablespoon of red wine or cider vinegar plus 1/2 teaspoon of sugar for 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar? I certainly didn't know that. Thank you Better Homes & Garden for your awesome red check cookbook with list of substitutions in the back. I cannot tell you how many times I have referenced this list in the 7 or 8 years I've owned this cookbook. And while I'm at it I should thank my awesome friend Casey for gifting this cookbook to me years ago!!

For the bread - I used my bread machine for mixing and rising the dough, super easy. Love the bread machine! (thanks also to my sister for giving me her bread machine a few months back!!) I should have started the bread a little earlier this afternoon, however, because I was not able to let the dough rest as long as it should have before baking. We were hungry!! Despite this, the bread was AWESOME!

I think it looks like apple pie or something in these photos but trust me, this was yummy!

As for the soup, well, it wasn't bad or anything but - and maybe I should not admit this - I did not like it as much as the Campbell's Select tomato basil soup and the rest of the family agreed. With the price of tomatoes and the number of steps (and dirty dishes, ugh) and the amount of work this particular soup recipe involved, I'm not sure it will be a keeper for us.

I do think "Meatless Monday" is a keeper though and will continue on with this idea at least until I exhaust all of my vegetarian recipes.

The Rest of Our Weekend

We had more beautiful weather this weekend and took advantage of the sunshine on Saturday with another trip to Joyner Park to let the girls ride their bikes. It was a little breezy and cool but after 5-10 minutes of walking and riding we were all warmed up. 

Until Samantha gets the pedaling (and almost more importantly, the steering) mastered a little better we decided we would be better off sticking with the tricycle. It is more fun for Samantha anyway. I wish I had taken some video of my little speed demon as she coasted downhill. She was hilarious! Every person at the park we passed was getting cracked up by her.

I am super proud of Gabrielle. She did so well on Saturday! She wanted no help and was able to even pedal up most of the hills on her own. Once again, neither of the girls wanted to leave. Unfortunately all good things come to an end at some point.

Here in the Lingg household we are continually rearranging and reorganizing. It is a must as new toys and stuff come into our cozy little house. Ed's dad made an awesome cubby unit for us when we were expecting Gabrielle. When we had little babies, it was used for blankets, diapers, wipes and all of those baby necessities you want easily accessible. As the babies grew the essentials were changed out for toys and books. When we put the girls in a room together last summer, the cubbies became storage for their gazillion stuffed animals, as you can see in this photo.

The problem with this is the stuffed animals NEVER stayed in the cubbies. I am not exaggerating when I say ten minutes after putting the stuffed animals back in the cubby, even with the girls having to do it themselves, the stuffed animals would inevitably end up back on the floor. And not just a few of the stuffed animals. No. Each and every single stuffed animal from big to small was taken out of the cubbies and piled onto the floor between the cubbies and the foot of the bed. Ed and I decided we might as well move the cubbies where they would actually get used.

I love it here. Instead of the shoes being piled up on the floor just inside the doorway, they now have a home on the bottom row. Our bookcase in the office was overflowing with books so we moved some of those to the top row of spaces, and still actually have room for quite a few more books The middle row is holding toys the girls play with the most often right now, mostly stuff they got for Christmas.

And until we find a better solution the stuffed animals are right where the girls apparently prefer them to be -

on the floor!!

I have to admit, it does look like a cozy place to lay and play. Ed thinks it is time to downsize by a few animals, and I tend to agree, but the girls really do play with each and every single stuffed animal. Every time I sit and go through them I cannot find even one they would miss. Until they are older and can decide on a few to at least store away in the attic, I guess we will have to deal with being overrun with stuffed animals!