Love One Another

During the week of Valentines Day, some ladies in our neighborhood gave our front door a heart attack!  They also gave our family a box of sugar cookies and kisses!  What a fun surprise!
Heart Attack

I helped little sister make an iPod Valentine's Day box since she was having a contest at school for the best box.
iPod Valentine's Day Box

Credits:  I used the following: iPod template, Sweetie Pie Kit by Shabby Princess and fonts were love ya like a sister, and calibri. Supplies to make it: shipping box, paper, foam paper with sticky back Valentine's embellishments, stick, yarn, scissors, glue gun, and glue stick.
Our Valentine's Flowers, chocolates, and car!

I adore my lovely family!

I hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day too!

Winter Olympics and Adore You Scraps

Since the Winter Olympics are taking place this week, I decided to share my scrap page of when the 2002 Winter Olympics came to Utah. During that time, we went downtown to Provo to check out the ice sculptures, activities, and watched the Olympics on the television afterwards.

Winter Olympics, 2002

Credits: I used "Winter Wonderland" Kit by Shabby Princess and  Mareen's print for the font.

As for a lovely Valentine's Day page, I would like to share how much I adore my two daughters! They have such a sweet relationship as sisters. I am certain they will always look out for each other. 

Adore You, 2009

Credits: This is an old kit by Dani Mogstad called "Crazy Love". I used FO giggles and DJB fonts for the fonts.

Happy Hearts Day!

We strive each year to make it a tradition to make holidays an extraordinary day in our household. Earlier this week, little sis gave our house a "heart attack" makeover!  For activity day, she cut out several hearts and scriptures about love. She taped the hearts all over the house and gave each family member a special Valentine.

The following are some of the "love" scriptures that little sister used on her hearts:

1.  A man speaks from good or evil in his heart (Luke 6:45).

2.  Follow the Son with full purpose of heart (2 Nephi 31:13).

3.  As a man thinketh in his heart so is he (Proverbs 23:7).

4.  Offer for a sacrifice unto the Lord a broken heart and a contrite spirit (3 Nephi 9:20).

5.  Blessed are the pure in heart (3 Nephi 12:8).

6.  Man looketh on the outward appearance but the Lord looketh on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7).

7.  I will tell you in your mind and in your heart by the Holy Ghost (D&C 8:2).

8.  He that hath clean hands and a pure heart will ascend to the hill of the Lord and be blessed (Psalms 24:3-5).

9.  Elijah will turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers (Malachi 4:5-6).

10. Love the Lord thy God with all thine heart (Matthew 22:37).

Last night while I was at enrichment night with the relief society sisters in my ward doing humanitarian projects, my husband made our girls a delicious
Valentine's Day home lunch filled with fruit snacks, candies, heart shaped sandwiches, carrots, sugar cookie, and lemonade. The girls also printed out some free darling Valentines Day cards (Owl You My Valentine and Friendship Cards).

    

Today my wonderful hubby surprised me with some pretty flowers and a couple boxes of chocolates as my "sweetheart" gift from him!  I started the morning off with chocolate, which is a very essential food group on Valentine's Day!

 

Before the girls left for school this morning, big sis and I did a "heart" hair do on little sis thanks to Pinterest for the creative inspiration! Then hubby made us a yummy "heart healthy" breakfast (pink honey wheat heart shaped pancakes with Nutella, fresh strawberries, turkey bacon, and eggs).

For our Valentine's Day dinner, we made mini "heart" pizzas and one square pizza. We found a fast and simple two ingredient pizza crust recipe from Kidspot Kitchen that doesn't require any time to rise!

Mini Heart Shaped Pizzas

Crust:

1 cup self rising flour

1 cup Greek Yogurt

Extra flour for shaping and kneading the dough

Heart shaped cookie cutters

Toppings: Alfredo Pasta Sauce, Italian Seasoning, Italian style cheese blend (finely shredded), ground sausage, Canadian bacon, pepperoni, green peppers, sliced onions, mushrooms, pineapple tidbits, and olives.

Directions: Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cook sausage in a frying pan, drain grease, and set aside. With small heart shape cookie cutter, cut out heart shapes with the Canadian bacon and pepperoni. Slice some onion, green peppers, and mushrooms.   In a large bowl, combine flour and yogurt and mix to form a ball. Turn out onto a floured surface to knead and roll. Knead the dough for 7-10 minutes. Roll into a pizza heart shape and add sauce, dash Italian seasoning, cheese, and your toppings that you desire. Bake the pizza 15-20 minutes or until the edges are golden brown. This recipe yields one pizza. Enjoy!

Our Thoughts: The two ingredient pizza dough recipe took a lot of time to knead to the right consistency. We added 1/2 to 3/4 cup of flour while shaping the dough into a ball due to it being very wet and sticky.  We allowed the dough to rest for a few minutes after achieving the right consistency. Then we were able to roll it out successfully. The crust was similar to a thin crust soar dough that was golden brown.  We loved the flavor and texture of the crust!  We look forward to trying the recipe again someday in the future!

 I hope your Valetine's Day was filled with flowers, chocolate, hugs, and kisses! XOXO

Valentine's Day Surprises

I love Valentine's Day surprises!  We sure had a marvlous day!  The girls were dressed in pink...  We made a simple heart and foil Valentine's Day box for little sis and big sister received many Valentine's from her friends at school.  No worries nothing shown here were from boys!  She does not have a boyfriend or secret admirer...  Obviously, big sis has a lot of friends!

I made special Valentine's Day school lunches for my girls the night before.  They included the following: heart shaped ham and cheese sandwich, a clementine, Capri Sun, strawberry fruit roll up, a pink Loft House cookie, and Chicken in a Biskit crackers.  Then I enclosed a Happy Valentine from Mom too.

Later in the evening John surprised the girls with a puppy!  One of the biggest pros of living in our new place is the owners allow small pets with an extra deposit.  So we looked for the perfect puppy for our needs:
 non shedding
 hypoallergenic
 small breed
 intelligent
 easy to train
and happy
I did some research on several breeds and the winner is a bishon frise/poodle mix.  We named him Jagger! Isn't he the cutest puppy ever?  He already knows how to play fetch, sleeps in his kennel at night, and sometimes walks on his two front legs.  He loves to entertain us.  I can already see that he will have fun learning new tricks!  As for potty training that is another story.  In due time, he will get the hang of that.  We absolutely adore him!

Our Happy Valentine's Day

Over the weekend, the girls were sick with two different types of flu.  One girl had the body aches and fever while the other girl had vomiting, diarrhea, and fever.  We missed church because we didn't want to share our yucky germs!  Luckily, on Monday morning, they were well enough to go back to school.   Who would want to miss school on Valentine's Day?  Both girls had class parties.  Little sister went on a field trip to a rest home to sing a couple songs to the elderly.  They were so happy to come home and show me their Valentines from their classmates!

For the girl's teachers and my visiting teaching sisters, I made adorable gift wrapped containers filled with chocolate from recycled toilet paper rolls.  I got the idea from  Dani's Blog . They are so easy and fun to make!  I was very happy with how they turned out!  The girls were excited to give their Dove chocolate Valentine to their teachers!

Valentine Gift Roll

Supplies:

toilet paper roll

ribbon

tissue wrapping

scrapbook paper (I used Wild Love kit by Shabby Princess)

candy heart chocolates or any candy will do

tape, scissors, and glue stick (for the paper heart embellishments).

Step One: Roll the toilet roll in tissue paper.

Step Two: Tie the end with ribbon, add candy to the container, and tie off the other end with ribbon.

Step Three: Wrap the pretty scrapbook paper around the toilet roll and add some cute embellishments.

After the girls left for school, I put on my dusty running shoes and went on a long walk with John since it was his day off from work.  We walked up and down the foothills near our neighborhood.  It was a beautiful morning!  The sun was out for a while and wasn't too cold.  Later that day it got dark and gloomy.  I'm so glad we got out and took advantage of the great sunlight because I've been lacking some vitamin D treatments from the sun lately.  Today we both have extremely sore legs, hips, and behinds! OUCH!  What a workout!


For my Valentine Day present, John  surprised me with some beautiful hyacinth flowers since I am not a rose kind of girl.  Trust me, I've had many dozens of roses in the past, but personally I think they are a generic Valentine's Day gift.  Over the years, he has given me different flower arrangements with many other types of flowers than just roses.  Anyway, he had his reasons why he felt he had to buy me two flowers instead of one.  The pink one represents my good days and the violet symbolizes my dark days.  He informed me that he loves me no matter what kind of mood I'm in (thank goodness, right)!  So sweet of him and I feel so loved! ♥  They smell so good and remind me of Spring time when lilacs bloom.  I have spring fever and cannot wait for winter to be over!!! The flowers brighten up any room in the house!  I love the fact that these flowers could be houseplants or planted outdoors in a garden.  Whereas, roses die after a couple weeks.  So hopefully I will remember to water them enough and they will last for a while! 

Later that day for lunch, John spoiled me with a grilled chicken salad from Cafe Rio, yum!  

Then for dinner, he made us homemade Italian meat balls, pasta with red sauce, salad, French Bread, and bought some bubbly sparkle non-alcoholic pomegranate apple juice and grape juice.  It was a wonderful relaxing Valentine's Day since we exercised our hearts together and enjoyed some healthy food! ♥♥♥♥♥

"Love" Activity Day Crafts and Chocolate Rice Krispy Hearts

It was my turn to do activity day this week.  I decided since we are celebrating Valentine's Day on Monday, we should do some fun crafts and eat an amazing heart dipped chocolate sweet!  It took me a couple days to prepare for my activity. Thankfully, I got some help from my hubby, nephew Justin, and Justin's girlfriend Kelli to help me prep for my activity on Tuesday.  I tend to have a problem of thinking 'big' on my ideas and kick myself later when I find out how much work needs to be done to accomplish the things, doh!   


First of all, we made the YUMMY Valentine's Day themed treats.  I thought about the girls decorating sugar cookies, but felt bored with that idea.  Instead, I came up with a great idea of chocolate dipped rice krispy treats!  It turned out way better than I thought it would! Yay!  So you wanna know how I made them?  Here is the recipe below...

Chocolate Dipped Heart Rice Krispy Treats

6 cups of rice krispies

4 T( 1/4 c)  butter

1 bag of miniature marshmallows

heart shaped cookie cutter

cake sprinkles

sucker sticks or popsicle sticks

butter cooking spray

wax paper

Melt butter and marshmallows in a large pan.  Add rice krispy cereal and stir together well.  They will be gooey rice krispies, which is the only way to eat them in our household.  Remove from heat spray cooking spray on your clean hands.  Make sure you have another person helping you make these treats because the cereal mixture cools quickly and will be hard to mold while doing it alone!  Spoonful the krispy treat into the heart cookie cutter on wax paper.  Remove the cookie cutter and add the stick.  Gently place the stick in the heart shaped krispy mixture and add a spoonful on top of the stick gently molding it together pressing lightly.  Allow them to cool for a few minutes.  Once they are solid and secure on the stick start dipping them into chocolate. 

Melted Chocolate 

1 cup of chocolate chips (semi-sweet)

4 T. of butter

2-3 T of milk

Cut the butter into tiny pieces.  Add chocolate chips and butter in a microwave safe bowl.  Heat 30 seconds and stir.  Repeat heat and stir steps until the chocolate is completely melted.

Add milk and stir well.  We found that adding some milk will stretch out the mixture and will be easier to dip/ brush onto the krispy treats.  We used a pastry brush to coat the chocolate on the heart shaped krispy treats.  Then added some sprinkles and set them on wax paper to cool. We kept these treats in the refrigerator to make sure the chocolate stayed solid.  They were so gooooood!  We would like to try different variations such as using other holiday molds for Easter, Halloween, Christmas, St. Patrick's Day, etc.

As for my first craft, I made some adorable heart rings as a gift from me for my activity day girls.  They were a total hit!  The girl's absolutely loved them and cannot wait to wear them to school on Valentine's Day!  In fact, my youngest daughter wore them to school the next day! They were pretty simple to make for me considering that I am an inexperienced sewer! This project took me a couple hours of tracing, cutting, painting, and stitching the cute homemade Valentine's rings.   I got this lovely idea from Red Bird Crafts.

Felt and Button Heart Rings

 Wooden Heart Rings

Heart Rings

Thread red, pink, white from Walmart

Paint red and pink

Wood hearts (I got them at Robert's Craft)

Felt red, pink, and white from Walmart

1/4" flat elastic (black or white)

heart shaped buttons (red, pink, and white)

Other supplies: drill, scissors, needle, and a heart shaped stencil.

I measured my girl's fingers with the elastic (cutting them out larger than what I measured so I could sew the piece together by hand).   Since I bought white elastic, I used either red or pink thread to sew it together.  For the wooden hearts, drill two small holes (like button holes for stitching), then paint the hearts red or pink.  Once the wooden hearts are dry sew the wooden heart with some thread like you were sewing a button onto the felt elastic.  As for the felt heart rings, I traced a couple different sizes of hearts using a stencil (you can easily draw your own heart patterns by hand).   I traced the hearts on the felt material and cut them out with scissors.  You can design them however you like using one heart with a button or doing a couple different shaped hearts as well as the button.   Sew them all together on the elastic.  

During activity day, the girls and I made some homemade thumb print "love bugs" Valentine's Day cards, which I got this idea from Sweet and Lovely Crafts.

Thumb Print Love Bugs Card

red paint

black marker or pen

 googly eyes

card-stock paper (red, white, and black)

ribbon (red or polka dot like a lady bug)

Other supplies: paper hole punch, glue, scissors, and thread.

Directions for the heart card:  Do the child's thumb print first so that it will have time to dry.  I liked using white paper for the thumb prints.  Next, trace three hearts using a heart stencil or draw a heart pattern.  I used three different colored papers.  Use the hole punch on the top of the heart.  Cut some ribbon and tie a lovely bow through the three hearts.  When the painted thumb print is dry, glue some googly eyes on, draw a mouth, nose, bug legs, etc or draw the "love bug" however your heart desires!  On the back or front of the red and white heart papers is where the kids could write a little Happy Valentine's day or love note! 

These are my cards, which I created using my daughter's thumb prints!

The activity day girls free styled their cards using hearts and scrap pieces of papers.  Here are some examples of what my girls did.  Sooo cute, eh?  They had a lot of fun making them!

  

Lovely Valentine Themed Scraps

Since Valentine's Day is approaching soon, I thought I would share some of my favorite Valentine Day's themed scrapbook layouts.  I absolutely love Shabby Princess digital scrapbook kits, embellishments, fonts, etc!  I've been slowly collecting her beautiful digital kits over the years.  When Wild Love first came out, I got busy doing a couple "lovely" layouts.

Wild Love Kit by Shabby Princess

Here are my lovely layouts that I created using this kit!

Wild Things, 2004

Wild things you make my heart sing! I always get the lyrics of that song in my head so I decided to scrap a page that fits the words, LOL!  Credits: template by MSraps, every thing else is from Shabby Princess and unknown font.

Be mine, I love you, 2006

John and Jen: Be mine, I love you XOXOX

Credits: Shabby Princess, doodle by Lynnie Smith and unknown font.
You are Special, 2006

This is my youngest daughter. The journal notes says: Kids on the Move Playgroup.  You entered the world four weeks early.  You were delayed in speech and motor skills.  Carolyn and Caleb were your special team who helped you master speech, fine motor skills, and gross motor skills.  Thank you Kids on the Move.

Credits:The torn paper template is by Dorothy Howell. Everything else is by Shabby Princess (Wild Love Kit, Faux Jewels Embellishment Pack, Splendid Kit, and Autumn Chic Kit). The font is Susi's Hand.

*When I get a better working computer, I will be able to look up my unknown fonts that I used in my scrapbook pages!