Father's Day 2011

I'm a bad mom. Bad, bad... I totally forgot to snap a picture of our girls with their daddy on Father's Day! Ugh! But, I do have a few shots surrounding it, so here goes... I've been to the paint secion of Home Depot many, many times lately! On my last trip, I picked-up a few extra paint "samples," (all cream colored), and the girls drew pictures and wrote words as "samples" of why they loved their dad. (Not an original idea, but worked out well for us this year!) We attached it to the sports umbrella chair we got him from Costco. After church, we drove to Daniel's parents' house in Orange County, and came home with these: Needless-to-say, I think I overdosed on doughnut peaches today! So sweet, juicy, and irresistible! Also, while we were in Orange County, we stopped at the Japanese store and came home with some deliciousness for dinner! This is just a small sample; Daniel also made green beans, soup, sashimi, and sea urchin. I was stuffed! I felt a little guilty about letting him cook his own Father's Day meal, but considering what we ate I think it was best that he made it. Happy Father's Day to a wonderful husband and Daddy!

Happy Father's Day 2010!

Happy Father's Day to the most wonderful husband/ dad in the world! This year we had a totally homemade Father's Day. As you saw, the girls made the pancake batter squirters, and they also "helped" me make this duvet cover. Poor Daniel has been sleeping in a sleeping bag at work for the last few years -- this present was long overdue!

Once finished, I wrapped it back up in its original plastic, but added my own tags! (Thanks, Martha!)


We also put our own labels on some of his favorite treats from Trader Joe's.




Pancakes for breakfast... what else?!!?



The girls were so proud of their present, they couldn't wait until Papa ate to make him open it!



After breakfast, Papa showed the girls how to make the crystal "sing."

Checking out his new comforter... I think he likes it!

That afternoon, Daniel and Allison went to the park to play soccer, while Natalie and I baked his favorite cookies. (Of course, we had to add some chocolate for the ladies in the house!)

Grilled fajitas for dinner, and now enjoying the wide open windows and playing some Wii... gotta run!

Father's Day Prep and ideas

You may remember THIS POST about my husband's latest obsession with creating cool pancakes. Well, it gave me the perfect Father's Day gift idea! I gave each girl a Wilton's squeeze bottle, (the 2-pack cost me just $1 with my 40% off JoAnn's coupon!) I drew my design, as well as the words "Papa's Pancakes," and let them trace with puffy paint.


Allison was able to trace pretty well. Natalie... not so much. But, they both turned out pretty cute. I think Papa will love his surprise!



I saved the clear bag that they came in, and am planning to use THESE LABELS, (which I've already printed), to put on the bag once the bottles dry. I am also planning to use the labels on all his favorite goodies I bought at Trader Joe's Today. I have one more surprise I am working on for him, but I'll save it for another post. In the meantime, if you need some fun Father's Day ideas, here are a bunch I found:

• "idad" card
  

• Martha Stewart labels and other ideas
  

• circle cupcake tags
  

• shirt and tie card
  

• shirt and tie gift boxes
  

• other shirt and tie ideas
  

• neck tie card
  

• coupon book
  

• kid coloring pages
  

• another coupon book
  

• chocolate bar wrapper

• sampler card
  

Romantic Ideas

Looking for some fun romantic ideas for Valentine's Day? I've compiled a few for an upcoming MOPS newsletter, and thought I would share them with you, as well! Let's start with this one... remember these from New Year's Eve?

1. Homemade Fortune cookies! They were truly simple to make. Just think... if you dip them in chocolate and add some sprinkles, they would be perfect for Valentine's Day!

2. A love/ thank-you note journal. I originally bought this journal for Daniel for our first anniversary, (January 24, 2005). It is a place to record all the "little things" that we wouldn't necessarily write a thank-you card for, such as "thanks so much for doing dishes tonight," or "thanks for taking the girls so I could nap," etc. It's fun to stick it in different places for the other to find!

3. A decoupaged card holder. Being the romantic I am, I save all my cards and notes from Daniel. (Of course, what girl isn't a romantic?) And, being the romantic he is, he saves them all from me! So, I made him this box for our first Valentine's Day as a place to store all his cards. Unfortunately, I didn't make it large enough, so it now houses all the Valentine cards he writes to the girls each year. He started when each girl was a baby! What a treasure for them some day!


I have no more pictures, (at least not yet), but here are a few more ideas I've come across:

4. Date night coupon book with 12 dates... one for each month of the year!

5. I saw somewhere someone had framed old cards that were written to their spouse and hung them in a collage over their bed; it was very cute!

6. Alisa Burke turned her old love notes into pillows! You can get the tutorial HERE. Ok, I lied... here is one more picture:

If you're not into pillows, you can do a whole duvet cover like we did for Daniel for Father's Day this year! You can get that tutorial here.

7. You can never go wrong with flowers and chocolate... at least, not in my book! Being that Valentine's Day is also my birthday, those two items are always standard faire! However, my husband likes to go the "extra mile," and often thinks of more "creative" items to surprise me with. If he were a fan of chocolate, I would love to surprise him with these chocolate cupckaes with fire strawberries from Sprinkles Bakes. Creative. Original. Fire. If it weren't for the chocolate, which my husband doesn't like, I would be making these in a heartbeat! What the heck... here's another picture:
Lovely, aren't they? Ok, moving on...

9. Recycled Jar filled with sweet notes. If you're a scrapbooker, (or wish you had the time, but love the idea like me!), take the time to use some of your fun materials to dress-up an old applesauce jar and fill it with love notes your honey can pull out whenever he is feeling down.


10. Praise board! (Yes, you can completely disregard my "no more pictures," comment.) I just thought of this one! My dear friend made me this "praise board" for Christmas last year. I have it hung up... and I love it... but, we haven't really written notes to each other on it, simply because we don't have any dry erase markers near by!

She got the idea from Jeanne Winter's book, Inspirational Home, which I absolutely love! There are endless more ideas: other good resources include Be Different, Act Normal, and Family Fun. Let me know some of your creative romantic ideas!

Sweet Father's Day!

We had a really nice Father's Day.... I hope you did, too! My poor husband had a night of little sleep the night before, so after church he crashed until I had to wake him for our bbq. In the meantime, I made a fruit pizza with all the awesome summer fruit on sale right now! Yum, yum!

After Daniel and Natalie's naps (smile), we headed to Daniel's old high school friends' house for a reunion with their former high school basketball coach. What a fun reunion! It was so nice to meet his coach and have a glimpse of Daniel's high school life. It was especially fun to discover his coach and his family are also Christians.... in Daniel's words, "there is something different and special about fellowship with like-minded believers." All-in-all, it was a fun day! And, once again, thank you God for my awesome husband, who is the BEST daddy!

Father's Day Projects

So, I realized this afternoon that I didn't have a card for tomorrow, and I didn't have time to go buy one. What's a mom to do? Find something in bloggy land, of course! I found complete instructions for the card above at Alpha + Mom, and fell in love. You can check them out for yourself here. It is so simple, yet so cute! It even shows you how to do the tie. :) If I can get the house cleaned up tonight, I may go back and add some buttons or something for fun! Of course, Daniel is not exactly the suit and tie guy... nor is he a coffee guy, but look what the girls made:

We spent an afternoon a few weeks ago at Color Me Mine, and had so much fun! The girls did such a great job! Of course, there are plenty of things to paint there... why choose a mug? Well, even though he doesn't drink coffee, he does love his chai tea lattes. But, the real reason is because I wanted something to go on this coaster that I made him:

Isn't it awesome? We made them at one of our last MOPS meetings, and I fell in love. Just imagine the possibilities... an entire coaster set for the grandparents... small ones turned into magnets... endless ideas! I'll have to get the "recipe" from our MOPS creative activities coordinator for you, but I know they were super easy! And, last but not least, here are the girls creating their mugs:

Madame Serious.

Ms. Clown!

Happy Father's Day, Daniel!
You are the BEST dad, and our kids are SO blessed to have you!!
(and so am I!!!!!)

Dinners Outside

Dinners without Daniel can be somewhat challenging... mostly because they happen so often! I imagine that if they were a not-so-common event, they would be somewhat special! I'm always stuck with the dilemma of what to make that the girls will eat, yet is still healthy. Often times, I just plan my meals as if Daniel were here, and then just let him eat the leftovers the next day. In fact, when I was pondering aloud what to do for Father's Day, Allison said "I know... he really likes leftovers. You should give him leftovers!" (Thought that was cute...)

Since we leave for vacation tomorrow morning, and Daniel has been working the last few nights, I just decided to do a simple Mac n Cheese dinner, and have a picnic outside. Last night, we did the front yard, and today we took it to the park! It definitely spiced up dinner time around here! Of course, the girls would be happy if I just let them eat Mac n Cheese or cereal every night for dinner, but that can't happen. Perhaps when we come back, I'll try serving a "real" dinner outside to see if that sparks their appetite!

Super Dad

Last weekend I showed Daniel what I thought was an amazing blog about a dad who makes pancake creations for his daughter. You can check out Jim's pancakes HERE. Not to be outdone, the next morning we woke up to some amazing pancakes -- but no pictures! (I had to laugh -- Daniel had acted like the guy was crazy and kept commenting how he has way too much time on his hands!) This weekend he was at it again. This time, I woke up in time to capture some of the fun on film! As amazing as Jim's pancakes are, he does use some fancy squirt bottles, whereas Daniel uses a spatula. I think I know what to get my husband for Father's Day this year!

Math and Manipulatives

Yes, Sierra?? Do you have a question about what we're doing?? :) Our math program this year calls for a LOT of manipulatives. After all, it's only first grade... however, Miss Allison decided she likes just doing math better than using manipulatives... or even better than doing the math/ coloring pages. I was shocked when she asked for one of her timed tests, yesterday! She must be her father's girl.

Never-the-less, I have a kindergartener who appreciates it, and a toddler who enjoys the "snack" side of it, so we try to use the suggested activities once a week.

Most of the activities involve drawing 2 pictures and using different snacks to make different number setences. This day, everything was adding up to 10. We used pretzels for branches and marshmallows for the fruit of the tree.

And, this is Sierra's wonderful work... I think she earned that pretzel! :)