Feeling the (Free) Love!

Today, I thought I'd share something that will help you to appear Supermom-ish next Valentine's Day with minimal effort on your part.  I found this awesome free packet of Valentine's Day printables.  There were so many great things that we didn't even get to them all.  We ran out of time so I packed some away for next year!

On the Friday before Valentine's Day, we included some of them in our regular school work.  Annalise loved sorting the cutouts by size and then matching them with real conversation hearts.

Next, we all played several rounds of "Roll & Cover Sweethearts".  It was actually a really fun game that they could all play together! (The constant candy-eating may have had something to do with their willing participation.)

 On Valentine's Day, I surprised the kids with our usual table of Valentine fun!  We had heart-shaped pancakes and strawberries for breakfast.  At each of their places, I put more games and activities along with their Valentine presents.

Valentine graphing with their own boxes of conversation hearts was a BIG HIT!  They loved comparing their colors and amounts to see who had more or less of each color.

We also had sequencing pages, mazes and drawing practice.  I put everything in sleeve protectors and they used erasable markers.  This way, we can use our printables every year!

I think this was such a great package that I honestly would have happily paid for it!  You should hurry and print a copy just in case it disappears before next Valentine's Day!

Stay tuned next week, when I remember to turn my camera flash back on and all the pictures stop looking like I took them in a cave!

We laugh periodically.

Today, I thought I'd let Aidan entertain you with his new favorite song.  He sings it all the time and it's super cute!  They listened to a youtube video of this song in one his homeschool science classes.  He LOVED it and apparently sang it nonstop until he had it memorized.  In fact, I was walking across the parking lot with him after his class and a car stopped.  A woman I had never met rolled down her window and yelled, "Hey!  That's the kid with the element song!  It's so funny! Come here and sing it!"

When he got home, he used his book, The Elements, by Theodore Grey, to try to memorize all of them.  I highly recommend this book.  Aidan has read it cover to cover and I still always find him flipping through it at bedtime.  It's not a kids' book; but, it is kid-friendly and really well-written.  I'm excited to order his new book about Molecules.

The girls try to join in; but, mostly Annalise just rides in the car chanting, "Lithium, Lithium, Lithium, Lithium..."

You can find the video here.

The Mysterious Affair with Spiles

Last spring, the whole family took a Maple Sugaring class at our local park.  We had such a great time that we just knew this year, we wanted to give it a go ourselves.  We have three big maple trees beside our driveway that are constantly dropping some sort of debris all over the place, so it was high time that they started contributing.  We think they are silver maples; which, aren't the ideal choice. They have a higher concentration of water to sugar so they don't make quite as much syrup.  They do, however, produce TONS of sap.  We got about a gallon of sap in the first twenty-four hours with just two taps.

Normally, you would collect for at least a few days before you boiled down a batch of syrup; but, since this was a total experiment, I wanted to try a batch before we spent two weeks collecting and storing sap.  For our first try, I just strained and poured it all into one big pot and started to boil.  It was such a nice day out, that I was able to open the kitchen windows to let out some of the steam.  I also made a giant pot of meatballs and sauce since I knew I'd be tied to the stove all day anyway!

The proper way to make syrup is to boil down smaller amounts of sap in two shallow pans and then add the reduced sap to a third pan for a final boil.  It boils down quicker and results in a higher quality syrup.  I will definitely go that route next time, as I had a few issues along the way.

The sap boiled down fairly quickly.  As it reached the bottom of the pan, I realized that the candy thermometer I had prepped was not going to work because the liquid in the pan was now too shallow.  I poured it into a smaller pan; but, eventually it became too shallow as well.  Then, about two minutes before my syrup was done, I cracked the glass on my thermometer.  This left me with no other option than to eyeball my syrup, as I had no idea about the temperature.  Eyeballing caramelizing sugar is definitely not the best way to go.  I didn't burn my syrup at all; but, I did leave it on the heat too long and as it cooled, it grew a bit too thick. 

 It's still delicious and we just microwaved it a bit to use on our pancakes this morning.  The good thing about maple sap is that I will have LOTS of opportunities to get it right over the next week or two!  We picked up a few more spiles to tap our third tree and add another to the largest tree.  I'll try another batch in a few days using the three pan method... just as soon as I pick up a new (and sturdy) candy thermometer!

 

Mean Green Number Nine

A few weeks ago, our family participated in our first Pinewood Derby Race.  I really had no idea what to expect; but, things were very official (and apparently dangerous) as you can see...

Aidan's car is the lime green Porsche in the number nine position.  He was very proud of his little car and actually did quite a bit of the work himself.  I helped him tape out the windows for painting... that was the extent of my manufacturing efforts.

 I didn't see too many of the races.  Annalise and I were busy doing what we do best:  eating Cheetos and washing dishes.  I was on hot dog duty for the event.  I have to admit that I thoroughly enjoyed cooking two hundred hot dogs and making 10 gallons of lemonade.  It must be that lunch lady blood running through my veins!

Mean Green Number Nine didn't come out a winner...BUT, when you have to stay until Mom cleans up the kitchen, sometimes you luck out, and are awarded the extra trophy left on the table!  Holla!

And... one of these SWEET Derby Pit Crew Patches!

DIY Stickers

Most of the schools around here are on Winter Break this week, so I figured we should take it easy, too. I planned a light week of school and some fun activities for the kids. Friday, we decided to try making our own stickers. They were so simple and fun to do.  I can't believe we haven't tried them before.

I just combined two envelopes of unflavored gelatin with one cup of water. I heated until the gelatin dissolved and then I added a half teaspoon of peppermint extract and left the mixture to cool.

While I was making the paste, the kids colored some small outline pictures and also drew and colored a few shapes of their own.

Next they cut their sticker shapes out and placed them face down in a tray.

When our paste mixture had cooled, we painted a thin coating on the back of our stickers and left them to dry.

Now all that's left to do is lick... and stick!

A Whole Lot of Love and a Whole Lot of Other Stuff

Valentine's Day at our house was a day full of fun and full of activity.  Ads kicked things off early for us when  she came downstairs about 6:30 this morning to discover the Valentine goodies spread out on the kitchen table.  She promptly came upstairs and jumped on us repeatedly until we headed down to open presents and start grilling our family's traditional pink heart-shaped pancakes.  We also opened Dad's treat because nothing says Valentine's Day like a box of chocolates for breakfast.

After breakfast, we got dressed in our Valentine finery, (and I use the term, "we" loosely...  I was still in my pajamas at 12:30, at which point, I jumped into the shower and changed into my beloved bleach-speckled purple sweatpants because our friends were heading over to play and I wanted to look my best.  Never mind that my children were all in new hand-crafted coordinated outfits with matching accessories even though they NEVER even left the house and I was wearing old, giant sweatpants; but, I digress...) and got started on our schoolwork.

After a fun afternoon with our besties, we had dinner and made these awesome cake pops.  The kids did most of the work themselves and I couldn't believe how cute they turned out.  They were pretty tasty too.  After cake pop making, we made popcorn and drizzled it with all of our leftover colored chocolate and candy sprinkles, because, you know, we will need something for breakfast tomorrow, too.

Having a Ball

We started with these.

They turned into these.

And THEY turned into these!

Lots of fun on a freezing-cold today 

and a great chance to play with my new camera!

With a baby on cleanup... what could be better?!?