Quick & Easy V-Day treats!

I mentioned that I was in the mood for crafting but not full-fledged take-all-day crafts. Just nice and easy, no more than an hour, do it during a nap kind of crafts.

My mom and Cutie Face whipped up a delectable gift that was super easy but looks like it was done by a professional.

All you need are some pretzel rods, candy melts, and sprinkles.

Mimi had the hardest part--

put the melted candy on the pretzel rods

Cutie Face had the fun, toddler-friendly part

shake shake shake the sprinkles!

Mimi's trick is to immediately put a tray of prepared pretzel rods into the fridge. Once hardened, she puts them in little plastic baggies for a professional presentation (please excuse these iPhone photos--camera died!)

Tie with a ribbon and...Voila! Instant V-Day gifts!

Cutie Face will be attending her preschool V-Day party tomorrow. Originally, I thought I'd use these adorably sweet V-Day printable cards made by Meg from Olliegraphic and offered on Oh my! Handmade Goodness. 

We got as far as decorating with Cutie Face's favorite craft accessory--

the pink glitter glue

and then I received an email from Tammy Mitchell Photography

(i subscribe to her email feed and always glean lots of inspiration from her ideas!)

and I was inspired...

sadly, i cannot use her pictures on my blog so check this link if you're curious

Anyway, I wanted to do something along those same lines but my own twist

I knew that Stauffers made cheese crackers in the shape of whales

so Mimi and I went to the Dollar Store to stock up on whale crackers

Using the clear cellophane bags from the pretzel rod craft 

and Avery Shipping Label 5163

I drafted two stickers for whale treat bags

One says: "I whaley like you"

the other says: "Whale you be my Valentine?"

Here's the finished product:

If you need a last minute Valentine sticker, let me know, and I'll send this sticker in jpg form to you! I'm very excited for Cutie Face to hand these out tomorrow!

Mail

Don't get jealous if you aren't immediate family

but the Cuties have been up to some

Valentine Day fun

set to arrive to our family's mailboxes

on February 14

I thought it'd be fun for Cutie Face to stamp V-Day symbols on hand-cut felt. 

She picked out pink glitter glue

I picked out felt and craft scissors

Turns out, at 2.5, she's not quite ready for the crafts I planned for. 

So we scratched that craft and made toddler hand-friendly stamps...

out of potatoes!

Take note: half potatoes are perfectly sized for a toddler to grasp and stamp

the good news for Cutie Face was...

she could still use her pink glitter glue!

in other MAIL news:

we daily get our Christmas Cards 

(yes, I know we were just talking Valentine's...)

returned to us

For some reason, the post office wants to deliver postcards to the return label

some cards have made it all the way to the state intended 

just to be processed back to Atlanta!

So today I took my pen to the address label

blacked it all out

and will be marching the cards back to the post office this afternoon

Hopefully the last 50 of you to receive them will appreciate the

Christmas/Valentine greetings!

Oh!

and that felt that I had such high hopes for? 

(seen below on cutie cakes' food tray)

happily hanging out in our sunroom playroom for all our new neighbors to see

let's just hope they don't think it's an eyesore!

Four Day Weekend for the 4th

(too bad i didn't use "4" four times in that post title...hmm, still thinking about how i could incorporate it :)

So, our 4th of July weekend was busy--how about yours?! We started the celebration on Friday and kept going through Monday. I honestly think that the 4th of July is one of my favorite holidays--running close to Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Here's our 4-day recap:

Friday

We prepared for Jen-Gram and Gramps/Papa to arrive and then had lots of fun with them once they came--together with J, they took Cutie Face to the pool! she LOVED it and so did they (or so i hear...)

Sadly (more like--shockingly!) i have no pictures to document this day 

...save for two of Cutie Face playing with her car...

clearly, it needed gas

Saturday

Cutie Face declared "i dough noo wad firah words is" (translated: I don't know what fireworks are) during breakfast. I was telling her all about the exciting day we were going to have tomorrow and it left her a bit confused. 

So, we did an impromptu craft (painting fireworks and stars)

and watched a YouTube video to help explain fireworks.

You, too, can watch the same video Cutie Face is watching...click here!

the crafting continued...

until i finally took one sheet of paper and stuck it on the fridge

(if i kept it in front of her she would have kept painting and stamping until the whole sheet was covered--as she did for the first 3 papers we went through...and as she is still doing in the background--look closely)

then we cleaned and got ready for the rest of our day

which was busy busy with 4th of July prep 

(food buying, Peachtree Road Race preparing, and baby watching)

Around 8:30 PM, once the babes were in bed, we finally settled in for the PERFECT pre-race meal...

i know you eat mussels the night before you race, right?

I don't! but J did*!

*could that be why he left a lovely deposit on the side of the road halfway through the race? perhaps!

anyway

Sunday

We were up and at 'em bright and early for the Peachtree Road Race (the world's largest 10k with 60,000 runners, held every 4th of July down one of Atlanta's most famous streets--you guessed it--Peachtree). Technically, I'd been up 2x before that with each girl but...whatevs...such is life.

I do want to say that I gave great thought to whether or not i wanted to run this race. I was mortified by my lack of training, horrified by what my race time would be and that it would reflect negatively on my competitive racing team and on myself. 

I thought and prayed about it for a solid 2 weeks. Then I finally came to the conclusion (obviously with the help of the aforementioned prayer) that all my runs are to be for God's glory (not mine or my competitive team's) and that, when i'm standing before my Maker, I want to be able to say that I ran (or did anything for that matter) to please HIM and NOT people. 

So, i gave the race over to God, declaring that any result, good time or poor, would be run to His glory. I was not nervous, I did not fret, I did not mentally prepare--i just ran with what God gave me. And that day He graced me with speed as I ran my second-fastest 10k. I'm still in shock. But I'll say it again--to GOD be the Glory! I can honestly say i can take NO credit for that race result!

posing with my speedy friend after the race:

Okay back to the post at hand

we hosted a quick family brunch post-race--it was fun and Cutie Face LOVED having her cousins at "her house" again.

good times, horrible photos

Cutie Face had such a good time that she wore herself out and went down for a nap...but Cutie Cakes got to stay up and be entertained by her cousins:

Following a lazy afternoon, we prepped for our neighborhood picnic

Cutie Face donned her Patriotic Dress 

and practiced balancing her dolls like J balances Cutie Cakes (scary, right?)

finally it was time to go to the picnic!

delicious food

lots of fun

cutie kids

and Patriotic CUPCAKES!

(we told Cutie Face we were going to a party and she automatically assumed there would be cupcakes there--in her mind party=cupcakes. Remarkably, someone came through and brought Red + White +Blue cupcakes as their contribution to the picnic.)

Thankfully, Cutie Face bounced off her sugar high in the bouncy castle

she wasn't afraid of it this time! yay!

After the girls went to bed we decided to head to J's office for some last-minute fireworks viewing 

(don't worry--the grandparents stayed with the girls--thanks guys!)

here's the view from his floor:

Monday

(i've been composing this blog post for a solid week now and i just want it finished--so here are some pictures and we'll call it done)

Starbucks date with the girls

Playing in Mimi and Poppy's new kiddie pool with the cousins

so much fun!

and eating watermelon

good sticky fun!

Phew! That post was a week in coming. 

If you read all the way down--I'm impressed. It clearly took me 7 days to write it but i hope it didn't take as long to get through it :)