My Valentine Hunks

I'm a huge sucker for any holiday! Especially ones that I can dress up my cute fellas and take their pictures!! I've been brainstorming this one for quite some time, and thanks to a special snow day this week, we were able to get them done!!

I sure love my little hunks!

Sending lots of love!!!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Fun

It's a good thing I started preparing our Valentine's activities back in January, because after spending over a week in Kansas, Valentine's Day really snuck up on me! I had high hopes of doing lots of activities with the boys, and while we didn't do everything I was hoping to do, we did our fair share! I shower my boys with love day in and day out, but to have a special time of the year to celebrate love a hundred times over, it makes my heart swell! Any chance I get to go the extra mile for my boys, you bet I'll do it!

One day, after reading one of our Valentines books, where they made the biggest heart mouse EVER, Grant said he HAD to do that project! So we made our own adorable little heart mice! We also made Love Bugs, because I don't really need an excuse to do footprint art! We also made chocolate playdoh that day and they pretended to have their own chocolate shop! They used some of the little toys from our Valentine's sensory bin and enjoyed making little candies and having me shop at their store!

 I also made this Valentine's Countdown activity to do each day, sort of like an advent calendar. Each day was filled with M&M's or Hershey kisses. Although, since we were gone until Feb. 9th, it didn't get too much use...but we will definitely do it again next year! I also cut out hearts to write something I love about them each day, as well as a bible verse to read each morning. They've really enjoyed that part of the daily activities! I put them out as they are eating their breakfast, so when they go into the bathroom to get ready for school we read our hearts and verse together! I think they find those little hearts very special! And of course, I'm a total sucker for Valentine's candy!! My little tin and bowl area always filled with some sort of sweet treat!

Along with our hearts and bible verses each morning, we also learned about the 1 Corinthians verse. The word LOVE is used in this house over a hundred times a day I'm sure. In addition to all the "I love you's!" each day, we also encourage the boys to show love in all that they do, because that is one of God's most important rules! When they are fighting over a toy, or not obeying our directions, we tell them that they are not showing love. Each morning we would read two or three of the lines and put the coordinating heart into our love cup! By teaching them this verse, they understand all the ways to show love and they really got it! We didn't go as in depth on this as I had hoped, as we had to cram the whole verse into 6 days when I was planning on doing it in 16. Definitely an activity we will do again next year! But worth it nonetheless!

 One day we made Valentine's cupcakes!! We delivered some to our favorite neighbors! :)

 And we I prepared their school valentines. My goal was to prepare them the beginning of the month, which I did, so they could have a few weeks to write their names on each and every one of them, which they didn't. Wyatt got his name on three of them and Grant did one. And then we left town....and when we got back, they had three days to get them finished. So having them write their own names didn't happen. Maybe next year! Although we did have to prepare 35 Valentines EACH, so that definitely would've been alot of work for them. So then it just became alot of work for me. But, it was a labor of love! :) 

(Grant's are the blow-pops and Wyatt's are the chocolate hearts)

The boys made these adorable Valentine Vests at school this week, for V week! They were pretty proud! Grant, of course, made his very symmetrical :-)

 I'm encouraged daily to show my boys love and teach them to love in return. I came across these two verses from a daily devotional and I just had to take a screenshot of them both to help me remember to show love in all that I do!

  I don't need a special day or month throughout the year to shower my boys with love, but having the opportunity makes it all the more special!! They love special things I do for them at holiday times and I hope that each of these little activities brought an ounce of extra love to them that they truly deserve!

Mommy Moment

After Grant's speech therapy, he and Wyatt always get to pick out a sucker. As we were driving home, Wyatt said, "I wish I had two mouths. One for sucking on my sucker, and one for sucking my thumb. That way I can do both at the same time! Because I really like doing both those things."

Oh, the things he thinks!

Snow Day Fun!!

Well, we woke up to a Snow Day today, surprisingly! I didn't know it was supposed to snow! I'm assuming Enid got more than Waukomis because Levi went out to shovel and we had maybe an inch of fresh snow on the driveway. But I guess if you add that to the 3" or so we already had, it seems like alot. But we will take the day to play!!!

Levi took the boys out to play the other morning but I was doing stuff inside and didn't realize they went sledding and did all sorts of fun stuff, and I was bummed I missed out on the photos! And since its supposed to be 67 degrees on Saturday, the snow won't last much longer! It was as if God knew I needed this day to play in the snow with my boys! And that's just what we've been doing! We had to come in for a hot chocolate break, of course, and I couldn't wait to tear into the pictures!!

Lots of sledding, rolling, and eating going on out there today!!

  Wyatt probably went down the hill about 25 times! And squealed with delight during each run!

 Grant did his fair share of sledding too!! He also enjoyed rolling around in the snow, making snow castles, and "inspecting" the snow!

 

And if you think Grant found a way to play outside and NOT have a stuffed animal involved, you're wrong. Of course, all his friends had to "watch" as they played in the snow! Such a sweet boy!

And this little guy just followed me around so I had a chance to snap quite a few pictures of him. But I'm glad I did...he's so darn cute!!

Can't wait to head out for round two after lunch!!!

Happy Snow Day!!

Good-bye Great Mom

This past week, we said goodbye to Levi's Grandma Edna, or as the boys refer to her, Great-Mom. She was 90 years old and lived an amazing life! She was a wonderful grandmother and Great-Mom to all the little ones. She always wanted to know what the boys were up to, or cute things they said. She loved receiving their artwork in the mail, which was always followed by a Thank You card. She was a wonderful mother, grandmother, and Great-Mom and we all will miss her very much!

January Artwork

So I didn't get around to December artwork, sadly. But thankfully I loved it all so much I'm keeping it either in their scrapbook or I'm going to laminate it to hang up for many Christmas's to come. Yes, I'm that mom! So what!! 

But the boys did bring home some pretty cool stuff from January too!

 Wyatt's snowman makes me laugh!! He always tries so hard to make things look perfect!

 And Grant...well, he tries to make everything he makes just silly!! I think he was successful!

 They enjoyed learning how to fold paper and cute snowflakes. Wyatt was less than impressed with his and said he just needs more practice. "Maybe next year" he says!

 One of Grant's favorite Bible stories! He's been waiting all year to do this craft! It's double sided!

And Grant, of course, LOVES his walrus!

One of the weeks in January is dedicated to Gingerbread week! They have a fun Gingerbread hunt around the church and school looking for the Gingerbread Boy and they finish the day by decorating their own gingerbread cookie! Such a special week and a fun tradition!

 Wyatt made a roll of Yarn and Grant made a basket of Yarn for Y week!

They also made Yo-Yo's.

 And these are random pieces, the bird by Wyatt and the Quilt by Grant. Not sure why they don't each have one, but oh wel!

 And this was actually done one morning in church by Wyatt. For some reason, he didn't want to be dropped off at Sunday School, so he sat with us during the service. He wrote his whole alphabet. You might not be able to find all the letters in a row, but I assure you, they are there!

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I wonder how many childhood scrapbooks the boys will deem necessary when they have a family of their own. Because at the rate I'm going (or want to go!), they're going to need a room in their house just dedicated to their scrapbook collection their mom made them over the years. I'm ok with that!