The kids had to bring their valentines boxes to school to be judged in a school wide contest.  There were different themes for each grade.  This year Janette’s theme was “I love Utah”  She designed this box all by herself.  I just sewed the seams so that she could put the coat hangers through to make the wagon’s canopy.  But she did the gathering on the ends by herself.  The platform that the “box” is on is in the shape of Utah as well.  That was her idea.

Logan’s theme was “Love Bug”.  We were going to do a paper mache spider but being the wholly unprepared mother that I am didn’t realize that paper mache is at least a three day project.  They were lucky that we got the boxes done on time as it was.  We got home around 9:30 that night (more on that to come).  Logan enjoyed putting all the bugs on his box.

Jason also knew exactly what he wanted for his box.  His theme was “Nursery rhymes”.  He did Humpty Dumpty. I had envisioned an awesome paper mache egg whose head cracked open for those to put valentines in but ran into the same problem as above.  This turned out cute though.

It was also Jason’s 100th day at school.  They were asked to come to school with 100 things on their shirt.  We went with heart stickers since we had that on hand.

For my BIL’s wedding I had the perfect thing to wear.  I’d had this suit for a year but hadn’t worn yet because it needed a little bit of tailoring and I had nothing to wear under it.  I’d almost forgotten I’d had it.  But we were given Fuchsia shirts to wear and told to wear black skirts.  I thought it was time to fix this suit.  But first, I wanted to make it look better with the fuchsia, so I changed out the light pink piping and replaced it with material from an extra tie that matched Jared’s.

Yes, that means I picked out the collar and the little bows and re-sewed them all.  I’ll admit that there were a couple of times when I was taking it apart that I had minor panic attacks but once that was all done it I was soo glad that I did it.  It looked great and now this outfit won’t be hidden in the back of my closet anymore.

For Christmas I made all the kids their own personalized book bags. I did it with freezer paper stencils and it was a lot of fun to do. It was also really easy to do, except for maybe Jason’s which included three stencils because of all the different colored “legos”. I had one left over and was going to make myself one but we ended up using it for a friend of Janette’s for a birthday present.

Every year the 2nd graders at our Elementary school all gather in the cafeteria with their parents and about 4.3 metric tons of candy and roughly the same equivalent in icing.  Then we let them decorate to their hearts desire these little gingerbread houses that were so carefully cut out by some super mom out there (not me).  When they were all done, the teachers started cleaning up and throwing away all of the excess candy and icing.  I figured that since I have kids at home that would love to do this as well I might as well take advantage and salvage some of the candy.  So, I gathered it up and then went to the store to get some graham crackers.  It took basically a whole afternoon but everyone got their chance to decorate one.  Well, Kimber basically sat next to me and ate candy while I made one for her, but she was happy and that’s all that matters.

So, from the top left:  This one is Janette’s.  Can you tell she was too anxious to go play with her friends that decorate a silly old gingerbread house?

Top Right:  This is Lex’s.  He was adorable with how he decorated.  He knew just exactly where each little bit of candy was supposed to go.  I love the pretzel fence and roof.  So cute!

Bottom left: Jason copied a bit from Logan’s.  Still, the snowman is adorable as are the teddy bear’s on the sled.

Bottom right: I went with a red and white theme for Kimber’s.  I had a lot of fun making a house after watching everyone else.

And last but not least: Logan’s!!  I love the ice cream cone tree and the red and white walkway and fence.  Also, his snowman.