A lovely pastel picture from Isabel.

A basket of hearts from Melina. My little one said she forgot to make us anything!

I gave each of the girls a valentine mailbox (purchased from the dollar store) and filled it with little toiletries and candies. They love stuff like that and I like it because it’s something useful. Makes them happy and it makes me happy. They also received a Beanie Boo each to hang off of their backpacks.

  The day before Valentines Day, my mom invited all of the kids to make valentines Day cookies. She made the girls an apron each and had them waiting for them on each of their chairs. It was so cute!  And last but not least, the girls each made valentine cards from their dolls to each of their sisters dolls!

I have finally learned to use a sewing machine! I can’t believe it! All I’ve learned so far is a straight stitch but that’s enough to make me happy! I haven’t had a chance to make anything yet other than fabrics of squares and a little purse for my daughter’s doll ( I wanted to take a picture of it, but I can’t find it!). I am planning on attempting to make the girls some simple clothing for their dolls! I do have lots of fabric swatches that I’ve had stashed away for the day when I do have time to sew something up. My mom is a seamstress and anytime I get an idea of what to do with my swatches I bring the idea straight to her and she executes it right away. I had a couple of old and boring throw pillows laying around and never wanted to spend the money on new ones because they tend to be a bit expensive! So I bought a bundle of fabric swatches at Walmart for about $10 to $13 dollars and had my mom sew up a couple of new pillow cases to cover my old pillows! It was like paying $10 for two new pillows! The swatch bundle usually comes with five, 18×21 inch fabric swatches. Somehow I ended up gravitating towards patterns that the kids would like! Everything I gravitate to these days have something to do with the kids! Now that I know how to sew a straight stitch I’m sure I can sew a new cover myself for the next old pillow laying around the house.

I unfortunately do things the same way my mom does…by eye! Good for me but not for you! I’m terrible at giving directions but If you know how to use a sewing machine I’m sure you know better than I do how to make these  simple pillow cases. Here is a tutorial I found if you’d like step by step instructions!

I asked my four year old if she could hold the pillow for me for a picture and as you will see below, all she wanted to do was throw it at me! As you can see while Lia is throwing the pillow, that I used two different swatches to create one pillow. Thanks Lia!

My kids and I love to draw and paint but sometimes it’s hard to be inspired. I bought these Usborne Playtime books a few years ago and we continue to use them often for inspiration. Today,  the girls wanted to use a new set of Alex Chalk Pastels my friend recently gifted to them and I took the books out and the girls spent a nice amount of time creating beautiful artwork! I think the girls would definitely enjoy I can cut and stick and I can crayon also by Usborne.

If you have small paper bags and colored construction paper, these little guys are super easy to make! The kids wanted to make some paper bag puppets so I simply googled paper bag puppets and found many ways to create one! We found a simple tutorial here for the puppy puppet and a simple tutorial here for the owl puppet here.

These hair clips are so fun and simple to make. I got the cute and simple idea from mycakies.com. All you need is some felt, thread, a sewing needle and some hair clips. You can even use hot glue if you don’t know how to sew or just don’t feel like sewing! I also made some hair clips for the girls to wear on St. Patricks Day. I found some clover patterns here. I cut out the pattern and used it to cut out the green felt. Cut two pieces, sew or hot glue together and hot glue a clip and you’re done!

We love reading any story by Jan Brett. Our family favorite is of course The Mitten. Our copy has literally had to be stapled and put back together several times. Not because the kids don’t take care of it but because we’ve handle the book so, so, so many times! I found this really simple and fun activity to go along with the story.  I had these printed and kept on hand for a snowy day, and lucky for me and the kids it SNOWED! Lots and lots of snow. It was fun to read the book and do the activity after hours of playing in the snow! You can find a pdf format Here. I’ve found lots of great resources and activities at www.janbrett.com.

    You know your kids are getting big when you can all sit and decorate eggs without it becoming a complete stress fest! I think this is the first year I actually 100 percent enjoyed egg coloring season! In the past I enjoyed it about 75 percent, maybe? Having three kids so close in age there was always one, even two children who were too little to do it by themselves and too impatient to wait for help. But this year, it was just lovely and the girls were able to take their time and share the colors and I was even able to color a few myself! I’m not sure why but I didn’t take any pictures of what the girls did to their eggs! They added eyes and tails and glitter, they came out so cute! I could swear that I took a picture before we turned them into egg salad. Oh well! And Isabel, what happened to the picture of her!? Well, she was there! and her eggs were awesome!

The Ten Plagues is one of the most fun parts of the Passover Seder for me and the kids! My kids love acting out the plagues, and these quick and easy to assemble plague puppets are perfect to get them involved and help them (and myself) learn more about the Passover story. Last year we made these cute plague puppets for the kids to use during our Passover Seder. I had bought a set at Party City years ago and when I went to take it out I found that some pieces were missing (my youngest had gotten into the bag and well not sure what happened next but some pieces were torn and chewed up). Instead of buying a new set I decided to quickly make one. I found a cute printable set here and here. We printed them out, laminated them ( I actually used large clear tape to laminate them because I don’t have a laminator!) , and cut each one out and glued them to a straw (didn’t have Popsicle sticks!). I found a cute little shoe box and had the girls decorate it and we use it to store our plagues. I was so excited to find it in one piece and can’t wait to use it tonight! Happy Passover!