I do not consider myself a crafy person at all. My mom did so many growing up that I think it put a bad taste in my mouth. However, I want AK to have these experiences, so I make myself do them, and enjoy them! It is amazing the number of children I come in contact with that never do these things and think the only fun in life can be had in front of a television. It's sad really.
My friend Mary Catherine made these salt-dough ornaments with her two girls. I thought they turned out precious. I really loved the ones from the site where Mary Catherine originally got the idea. But now that I've done my own, I can see why that person sells hers and I will not!
So here we are, early one Saturday morning, with our salt dough. That stuff is sticky! AK did not like it as much as I had hoped, but she did finally, with much prodding from Tommy and me, make a few. She even, finally, towards the end, quit freaking out with the dough getting stuck to her hands!
Gotta love that "cheese" face!
Yep, she's really interested!
I wish this picture weren't blurry - I love her sweet little smile!
And here's our finished product. The non-Martha Stewart in me did not paint the back of the ornaments. That's ok - I'm sure we'll do them again next year! Here she is signing her Valentine's to her friends. Wow, with her not even being in preschool yet, we sure had a load to do! We have lots of friends and family to mail them to, plus the three friends that are at her babysitter's with her. It's a good problem to have though, and she enjoyed "signing" almost all of them! (Towards the end I had to beg!)
We always make homemade Valentine's for the grandparents and family. Last year it was mostly me that made them, but they definitely had her input! (I measured her arms and drew them out, tracing her hands, and attached them to a heart. It was a life-sized hug in the mail, from my girl!) This year she helped me color the hearts that I cut out, and we added her hand print. A little simpler, yet involved her more. [I have no pictures of us doing this because Tommy was out of town, somewhere - I can't remember where - and it was impossible to hold her paint-covered hand, in the right place (and more importantly - nowhere else!), and a camera!] Here's the finished product:
Lastly, as with any great holiday, we had to make sugar cookies! Again, Tommy was out of town, so by the time she and I made these and cleaned up the huge mess, they did NOT get iced! Luckily, I had some pink sugar and Valentine's sprinkles that decorated them. (And lucky for me, I don't like icing that much!) This was the most Addie has gotten into making these so far. I think she'll definitely love playdough soon - outside of course!
I love that determined little scrunched up face!
And she's now smart enough to realize if Mommy can eat the dough, so can she! Luckily, there didn't appear to be a tummyache that usually goes along with eating that much dough!
Love that dirty face!
I think her favorite part was rubbing the flour all over the table when we were done. Thanks sweet girl!
I am blown away by how tall she looks when standing at the oven! It pains me! (And no, we do not make a habit out of letting her hold on to the oven while hot and on!) Addie is such a lucky, blessed little girl. She had so many sweet friends and family members send her cards and packages and little surcies in the mail. (Plus, the boatload of stuff she got from her friends at the babysitter - Valentine's is bigger than Christmas! I'm sorry Heather for not giving you a warning!) I only have pictures of her opening the ones she got on Friday - why I don't know! That isn't like me to not document every single detail! Tommy and I, of course, just used this holiday as an excuse to treat our girl. We got her the Super Why (her favorite cartoon) Princess Presto magic spelling wand, cape, and crown; a new "room" for her dollhouse; and another Snap-n-Style doll outfit. These are her favorite toys as of lately - her dollhouse and the Snap-n-Style doll.
Yes, her cute Valentine's shirt is tucked into her pants! She has pants to match this, which she was wearing, under her jeans! It started snowing that afternoon, so I packed her in multiple layers and took her outside. This was after we came in, so she was still in the snow get-up that I had her in! (The mailman came while we were out, and I told her about her cards and packages, and we had to go in right then!)
I asked her to show me her card!
One of my students gave me this little bear, which of course I gave to Addie!
And here are some of her cards on display. She loved them. She's very fortunate and gets cards and things in the mail a good bit (I guess it helps that all of our family and many of our friends don't live here!), but for some reason, she loved these. She'd ask me to get them down and she'd sit there and read them like books! I picked up these little gel clings a few weeks before Valentine's. My mom had some that she let Addie decorate her storm door with, that goes into the garage, at Christmas time. Addie loved them. We don't have a door that was really feasible for her to do this with (all of our doors are paned glass with plantation blinds on them, and the one going to the garage is a normal door), so I never got them out. Talking to Tommy one night I told him I had bought them for her, but that we didn't have anywhere to put them. He just looked at me like I was crazy asked why she couldn't do them on her playroom window! Duh. That is so me. Everything is black and white! Sure am glad I have someone in my life to look at things differently from me!
She loved putting these on her window. I'll have to find more for other holidays!
She even did really well with the letters. It was supposed to say, "You're Sweet," so I pulled off one letter at a time and told her to put it next to whatever letter was beside it, and she did! Yay! My smart girl!
"W" is her favorite letter, but she put it on upside down! That actually surprised me, but I just reminded myself that she is only 2!
I love Pinkalicious looking on!
The finished window! (Then, later, she came in and took them all down and put them all on again in various places. She even lined them all up in a straight line and told me she was making a castle!)
Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!
I loved that you used the word cerci! I have had tons of questions about the word since using on my blog. People have never heard of it. For those who had, they were curious of the spelling as they had only heard it!
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