The DL, on V-Day

Happy Valentine's Day to you and yours. May you be reminded how lucky you are to have all these lovely people who love  you. I am certainly reminded of that today! In fact, I was flipping through photos of my littlest Valentine, and found some more funny stuff to share with you today. Here are some things you should probably know about our boy and his little self at the present time:

If you let him help you cook, he will eat half the ingredients before you are done with them.

He sometimes prefers to jam on the guitar pantless.

Pants are optional, slippers are not.

In fact, he likes his slippers so much that he wants to wear them all the time. We have to tell him, "No, you cannot wear them out of the house." So, when we get home, off he will trot to find those slippers and put them on. Shoes off, slippers on. A regular Fred Rogers.

According to him, the diaper pail makes an excellent riding apparatus.

And, a good place to hide is under there. 

Until you realize you might be stuck.

It's true. That pacifier is his favorite thing on the planet.

And he IS a flirt.

Just the other night he was waving and saying hello to a group of SMU co-eds at the table next to us at a restaurant. They weren't interested in giving him the time of day. It didn't mean he wasn't throwing the charm their way.

And, sometimes, the charm is all for him. His chair was pushed up against the mirror the other morning. He climbed up in it, facing the back of the chair, his face toward the mirror. He looked right at himself, smiled really big, and said, "Hiiii!" Ham and a half.

He loves riding this horse that his Daddy once rode.

Looking much like his Daddy.

He adores handing out hugs.

And if there's a dance party - he's IN IT, baby.

Best wishes for your Valentine's Day. I'll be in class with my students. S has jury duty today. So, you know, one for the memory books. Ha. We'll love each other all day long, and that's all that matters.

See you soon.

Valentine's Treat: Two Ingredient Strawberry Fudge

I mentioned yesterday we made a little Valentine treat to go along with some of our Valentines (or these Valentines) to be delivered locally. I found this recipe, where else, on Pinterest. If you want to see the post I read, you can see it here. I actually have added this blog to my reading list. I love her photos and recipes. Speaking of blog reading lists, if you're stopping by regularly, please take a moment to join this site and let me know you're reading. It would be great to hear from you. 

Anyhoo, I tried out the two ingredient recipe, and here is the tale:

Ingredients

What's that you say? There are THREE ingredients in that there photo? Well, yes there are. But only TWO of them are mandatory. The third one...

...this one - it's just for decoration.

Not necessary, but pretty.

If you clicked through, you'll see Cookies & Cups used little hearts on the top of their fudge. I looked for these, albeit only where I was already shopping, not on a special trip or anything, and I didn't find anything. I had this colored sugar left from a trip to Dean & Deluca when I had cash burning a hole in my pocked to buy something. And I chose colored sugar. Ahem. It worked perfectly for this recipe. You'll see!

You melt the white chocolate chips, however you please.

I microwaved on this day.

Eventually, you'll have melted chips.

Then you add in the strawberry frosting.

Mix it up.

Pour it into a greased or wax papered 8x8 dish.

In your pajamas, with an antique high chair nearby.

Make it look pretty on top.

Add decoration.

Refrigerate.

Once it's set, you can pull it out of the pan and cut it into pieces. That's why I like to leave the wax paper sort of long on the sides - so it'll lift right out.

Then I used these...

...to tie some pieces up and make a pretty package!

Then, I attached the love bug valentine.

Then I stacked up the remaining pieces.

You know, for LATER.

I was pleased with their cuteness and presentation.

I wonder if this two ingredient plan would work for other flavors - I purchased some chocolate fudge frosting and peanut butter chips to give it a try. I'll let you know how it goes.

Do you have plans to make your own valentines? Or treats? I'd love to know what you did. Best wishes for the weekend. We have playgroup and a birthday party on Saturday, then of course working on my class stuff. I hope your weekend is a good one. 

See you soon.

Valentine Crafts for Toddlers: Heart Mosaics

LM and I tried out some toddler Valentine crafts in the last few weeks. I thought I would show them to you before the weekend in case they inspire you to do some craftiness yourself before the Big Day. You know - Singles Awareness Day, as a good friend named it. I love that. No, silly, VALENTINE'S Day. Never been a big V-Day fan, but now that I have a kid, it's a reason to get crafty! So, here we go.

I found this site via, where else, Pinterest! But, this particular craft was not what I found pinned. I loved her ideas, though, so we have used some from her other posts. LM ( with help from Mom and Dad) made three Heart Mosaics for his grandparents for Valentine's Day.

The supplies include - some construction paper (in the case, I used some scrapbook supply paper I found at JoAnn's that was a pretty shade of red), decorative paper, a marker and a glue stick. That's it!

I tried to pick out decorative scrapbook paper that would fit the "valentine" theme but still say "little boy" - so there was one with cars on it, but in lighter colors, one was purple, but glittery; one had a baseball stitch on it, but that is RED; and one was red with the word, "Love" all over it.

I cut the decorative paper up into squares that weren't too small for LM to pick up. I drew a heart outline on the paper and covered the paper with glue. Then, we let LM decorate the heart! He loved it!

Then, when he was through, I made sure they were all secure with some more glue, and wrote the sentiment using a silver writing pen. Voila! Grandparent Valentines!

I hope his grandparents enjoy his craftiness. We had fun making them.

See you soon.