Freebie!

My friend, Robyn (who, if you are local, is a really awesome photographer. She's passionate about her work and loves kids and is fun), posted this freebie on her blog. Works with PS and PSE. I am thinking the bookmarks will be awesome for classmates for valentines (we'll do a generic photo of something fun...not my children) and the others for grandparents.

A Special Valentines Day

How did you spend your valentines day? My valentine and I spent 8 hours sorting and putting together all of these sets of legos. Romantic, huh?

About a year ago, the kids had friends over and the younger ones dumped all of our carefully-sorted-in-separate-locked-bins lego sets into one big pile. Since then, no one wanted to play with them. Finally, enough was enough.

I sat down with Aidan and started by slowly grouping them. I finally sorted them into colored piles and we went from there. But the only way to figure out which set was which was to assemble everything. So we set to it. And some of these sets are nothing to shake a stick at.

Here are a few...

And what's left as of today... 5 castle sets

If anyone dumps them into a big mess again, they will be flogged. Regardless of whose child they are :)

Am I Martha, or what?!?!

Kidding. I have been in the kitchen all day, though. Making the pops (prev. post) and a cake. No special occasion, except that I felt the need to try to make a yellow cake from scratch before I make one for Aidan's birthday in a few weeks. I'd hate to make one and have it be dry as sand. I am not much of a baker, because I am not a huge dessert person (salt. mnnn. i love salt). But now that I have kids, I have been baking more. But especially, I am not a cake person. Carrot and cheesecake aside (oh yum), I could never eat cake again and be perfectly content. So anyway....I tried this yellow cake recipe from Bakerella. It didn't let me down. It was quite good and not dry at all. But the best part of it? The frosting. Ohhhhh... heaven on cake. I iced the cake with this swiss buttercream from Smitten Kitchen. I forgot to put my butter out, so the consistency of the frosting wasn't as smooth as I'd have liked, but it was still yummy. If you are like me and don't care for those gritty, sweet frostings, then try this and you won't be disappointed.

To make the cake fun, I made another rainbow cake. This one was prettier than our first, though.

Ready to go in the oven!

Uh, yeah. I'd never present a cake that looked like this to anyone but my immediate family. Its so homely and I enjoy making cakes funky or pretty. However, by this time it was 8:15pm and I really did not care. So I slapped it on, dumped on some jimmies (sprinkles for the freaks who have no idea what I mean), and we were good to go!

The middle of the funky cake. I am getting low on my food coloring gels. So I used what I had: purple, green, blue, yellow, orange, and teal.

Valentines Goodies

Last year, the kids and I made these crayon hearts for their classmates as valentines. This year, I decided that I'd make marshmallow pops, put them in small cello bags, and attach a small valentine card to the ribbon. I didn't want to purchase cards, because lets face it --they are pretty lame. A friend directed me to some free printable ones and I decided on these cute ones from Secret Agent Josephine. I printed them in B&W and had the kids each color theirs. They are super cute!

The marshmallow pops, in vanilla (pink, which actually tastes like those Carnival cookies. Remember those?), and chocolate. Mnnnn.

Floating Hearts

They're nothing fancy, but the kids love holiday decor. So I made 3 of these strings of hearts, featured on One Pretty Thing and hung them in a few places throughout the house. They would have had more of a cool effect if I had been able to hang them together, but I don't have a light fixture that allows a grouping.

Heart Garland

A fun craft that I did to add some Valentine decor to the house: garland for the (yet not finished) mantle. Since the photo was taken last week, I found a much better way to secure it (not my snowmen).

(i apologize for the photo quality)

A big thank you to Sarah at Frills, Fluff, and Trucks for the tutorial on the heart garland!