Valentine's Day for Young Learners

Catching up on preschool posts: 

Sensory: macaroni with heart shaped scoopers, measuring cups, cupcake and ice trays, and heart shapes  hiding in the pasta. 

Dramatic Play: Valentine treats prop box. Baker's hats, aprons, oven mitts, spatulas, mixers, and an assortment of heart shaped chocolate tins, valentine dishes, heart cupcake goody shopping bags, and play cookies and cupcakes.

Pre-reading: Giant Valentine letter matchup. I gave the children a giant valentine and they filled in the hearts with matching letters to spell "Be My Valentine"

Manipulative Mix-Mates: I made a couple sets of Olliblocks Valentine people on two sided tiles so the children could mix and match and create their own combinations of heads, bodies, and legs. Each person is holding a valentine or letter. 

On to the most exciting part: the Valentine exchange!  I made "I love Yoo-hoo!" and gave each child a little mailbox to hold their party spoils in.

Fine motor/shape: tracing and cutting out folded valentine hearts.

Math: following a pattern with heart shaped and non-heart shaped marshmallows. 

 

Happy Valentine's Day, Young Learners! Thanks for the valentines!
I sure do L-O-V-E being your teacher.

Lovey Dovey Love Day

Valentines Day was full of celebration. 

There was a preschool party with my Young Learners.

There was a preschool playdate at Crystal Bridges. My favorite part was during the musical performance portion when they did a song about a "dead skunk in the middle of the road". If you've been to NWA in February (skunk mating month), you know that seeing a dead skunk in the road is a daily occurrence. There's a lot of road kill here. 

There were favorite books to be reenacted. 

There were paper plate heart hats to make with adorable girlfriends. 

I just love this pic of Annalise. What a cutie! 

There were sugar cookies to frost and sprinkle...

...and eat. 

There was a preschool valentine party at BVPS. 

And a valentine party in Quincy's class that Daddy got to attend (Q's teacher has a strict policy that doesn't allow any younger siblings to come inside her classroom.) Q loved having daddy there and we met up with her in the cafeteria for a lunch date. 

There was a valentine exchange in Reese's class. Funny story, I'd forgotten until the last second on our way out the door (for 3 hours of class parties) that I was supposed to bring a jar full of candy to Reese's class for a guessing game. Crumbs! No time! How did I forget this one? Not wanting to be the loser mom, I dug through the pantry to see if I could come up with something, remembering that I had a bag of M&Ms in there that would hopefully fill a jelly jar. No dice. I couldn't find the M&Ms anywhere! But when I reached into the drawer for a jar, the one I pulled out was full of jelly beans! Sweet! I remembered Reese had won it in a guessing game at Jackson's birthday party a couple months ago. Jelly bellies don't expire, right? Right. We totally regifted the candy jar and called it good enough. And luckily, Katie had been a good mom and written down how many jelly beans were in the jar inside under the lid, so I didn't even have to count them. Winning! So thanks to Katie for throwing awesome birthday parties so I didn't fail my kid on Friday ;)

I watched the Seidel kids after school Friday and let the kids frost and decorate more cookies and have a gluttonous free-for-all on their valentine candies. 

Friday night we gave the children their valentines (scented bands for the rainbow looms for Reese and Quincy, and two large bouncy playground balls and a Jake and the Neverland Pirates coloring book for Corbin and Soren), and had stuffies for everyone too. We took the kids out for our traditional dinner at a restaurant and ended up running into several friends at On The Border. Quincy fell asleep on the booth. Soren wanted to sit ON the table and eat everyone's beans. Reese and Corbin stuffed their faces and it was a pretty rambunctious dining experience. To encourage our monthly theme of gratitude, we went around the table and each said some things we are grateful for and some things that we love. 

We came home and put the kiddies to bed and exchanged simple offerings of chocolate covered pretzels, a card, and local micro-brewed cream sodas (for him) and assorted chocolates and fresh tulips (for me). We'd decided we've outgrown big gifts and expectations and decided to invest in a new mattress for our bed (ours was a hand me down when it was gifted to us and is going on 14 years old. Time for a new mattress and better sleep!) so it was kind of funny that we both ended up buying each other something anyway just because. It doesn't always work out that way, and we're ok with that, but it's nice that we were both feelin' the love and got each other a little something something. 

On Saturday we had a sitter and a gift card left from Christmas so we went to dinner at Red Lobster. 

We did a little shopping and I tried on a gorgeous dress at banana republic and then discovered I have very expensive taste. $130 for a knit summer dress? Pass. You bet this thrifty girl will hunt it down at the outlets this summer for like $20. We left empty handed but it was fun to go clothes shopping together, we haven't done that in...years?? 

 When we got home we reminisced about our first Valentine's day as a married couple 12 years ago.  We'd gone to a Slovakia vs France Olympic Hockey game and eaten chocolate covered pretzels in Salt Lake City, Utah. This year, our Valentine's dinner with four small kids had been just as loud, wild and crazy as a hockey game with the same amount of missing teeth and only slightly less fighting. We'd then come home to watch the Winter Olympics on tv and eat chocolate covered pretzels. So basically nothing has changed in the last 12 years except that now we are aware of how much more we have to love and live for than ourselves. It was a full circle moment and made our love-day-weekend just right. I really believe that more than "having a valentine, this day is about giving thanks and giving love to people who are important to us. We are all so lucky to be able to have and feel so much to love. 

I Love "Yoo-hoo!"

Preschool Valentine's Day party is today. Here are my 2014 Valentines! And honestly, after seeing the outrageous  cost of candy valentines (which the children all picked out, $5 for 22 Hershey valentines? Is that for real? Yes!) I was happy to pay $2 for 10 Yoo-hoos.  

I'm pretty excited for today. 

Thanks to those who shared yesterday's post. I think the more mothers who get the message the better. Between my sister's blog and mine, over 2200 people had read by noon. I don't plan to continue to publicize posts or any of the content of my little blog, but I felt inspiredto write  and share yesterday, so I did.  I hope moms everywhere are expressing more love for our jobs today. 

Happy love week to Yoo-hoo! 

Stay Puft

I just discovered Corbin playing quietly in his room.
And by "playing quietly", I mean I found my little glutton hiding in the corner after eating 3/4 of a box of Cocoa Puffs in one sitting.

Playing with him now just feels like a booby trap. I mean, that's a lot of Cocoa Puffs!

He is currently running around, giggling, and showing off his bloated belly. It's hysterical, and I am literally afraid to squeeze or poke him. If I wrestle him too much, he'll blow, and I'll be sorry.

Alas, he is going to explode eventually and it won't be pretty.

in other news...
Happy Valentine's Day, Aaron!
I move we save ourselves from our little ticking time bomb of a son and go for Plan B: Operation Get-A-Sitter-Tonight and give her a really big tip.

Update: well, we didn't escape fast enough. 4:56 pm (so close!) take cover, folks. It's a bad one.

Friendly Frogs: Love One Another/Valentine's Day Party

9th Love one Another/Valentine’s Day Party
Book: Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
Book: Anything For You by Harry Horse
Book: Hugs All Around by Scholastic Books
Book: I Love You More by Judy Cooley
Today is our class Valentine’s Day Party!
Share: Bring a valentine for each student in the class

Dramatic Play: Visit the Veterinarian
Provide stuffed animals and doctor supply toys for the children to play “pet hospital” with. Point out that “V” is for Vet.

Fine Motor: Rice transfer into heart shaped ice cube trays.

Sensory: Play dough! The children also had an assortment of heart shaped cookie cutters to experiment with
Gross Motor: Heart Hunt
Place assorted cutout hearts on the table, and send the children on a scavenger hunt to find their mates around the room

Cooking: Valentine treats! Decorate red velvet cupcakes with pink and red sprinkles.

Language/Phonics: Felt Valentine Letter Match.

I made an oversized valentine with felt. The children worked in pairs to match the letter hearts with the card to say,

They loved it!

Math: Valentine Math Use construction paper hearts to demonstrate simple math equations.

I chose to do this as a group lesson at the table, and the children collaborated to come up with guesses and answers to the equations.

Example: “I have 3 valentines. I give one away. How many are left?"

Record guesses.

Demonstrate with paper hearts.

"Two!”

Question: Who do you love? Why do you love them? Record answers

Practical Life: saying “thank you” when given a gift. Encourage the children to practice when they pass out their valentines to each other.

Music and Movement: Three Valentines (sing to Mary had a little lamb)
Three valentines I have for you
Have for you, have for you,
Three valentines I have for you
Pink and red and blue
I'll put them in the mail for you
Mail for you, mail for you,
I'll put them in the mail for you
Pink and red and blue

Farewell Jacob! One thing that I really love about Jacob is that he is always singing. He'll burst out in song at any given moment, and it's usually a pretty good song. I never remember to get them on video, but knowing it was his last day, I had my camera ready to catch him in the act.
Here are a couple clips of Jacob serenading the ladies at the play dough center with Black Eyed Peas. So cute.

Keep singing, Jacob! We'll miss you!

Oh, and for the record...we don't actually listen to Black Eyed Peas during preschool. Only when Jacob and Jace sing their songs for us. And Sam does a great "Hey Soul Sister", so it's like a regular radio station around here during sensory time :)

What's black and white and red all over?

Of all weekends, it had to happen on Valentine's Day weekend.

Last Sunday:

I'm running out the door for church and am preeeety certain my team teacher had the primary lesson covered, but just in case, I grab the manual, and then look in the game closet to grab something quick that I could make a learning game from and entertain the kids in my class if I end up needing to burn time at the end, or something.

Aha! Jenga. Perfect.

Maybe the little guys could answer a question, or help repeat a scripture on their turn, or maybe we could just build something with the blocks.

I have had that Jenga game for like 10 years. We have played it a few times recently, but I didn't really pay attention.

Anyway...fast forward to Sacrament Meeting when Corbin takes the bag of Jenga blocks and DUMPS it on the floor. It makes a crazy loud crashing noise as all the blocks tumble from the bag and clunk onto the pile one at a time. I'm embarassed, but then all the blocks have been dumped and it's quiet again, and Corbin is playing happily (and more important, quietly) with the blocks, so we just let it go, since it isn't really distracting any more.

What IS disctacting is when he reaches up and hands a block to Aaron, who gasps and sort of shout-whispers to me "what IS this?!"

"What? Jenga. It's a game. I'm going to play it with my primary kids today" I hiss back.

He hands me the block.
It is red and says,

Ah!

What?!

Truth or Dare Jenga!

My sister, HolleeAnn gave it to me for a graduation present when I was 18! It was a joke, obviously, since I was headed off to school in Utah. We had laughed about how useful it would be at all those wild and crazy Mormon frat parties I'd be going to.

Aaron's like, "you can't play this with the primary kids! You'll get arrested!"

and Corbin hands me this one

Aaron laughs.
I die.

And then suddenly, I am very aware that we are in sitting in the middle of church and that SACRAMENT is being passed all around us and our naughty little game.

That our kids are playing with.

It's all hilariously irreverent....

wait.
What if someone sees this?
It is Valentine's Day.
We'd be known as that couple.
You know,

The ones with the sex game.
The ones with the sex game at CHURCH!
and that's when corbin starts THROWING the blocks and saying "choooooo!" He throws everything! I should have known.

I panic.
"Quick! clean them up! Only the red and black ones have writing on them! Put them back in the bag! Hurry!"

Corbin is having none of that. He couldn't have cared less what was written on those blocks. They were his, and we were not going to take them away. He starts screaming and pushing them everywhere in a little fit.

He sends one under the pew in front of us.

It's black. Crap.

The mom reaches for it, and all I can do is close my eyes and pray "please don't read that please don't read that please don't read that!"

Luckily, the 4 yr old beats the mom to it, and slides the block back under the pew to us, before she could notice it had anything written on it. Or at least I hope she didn't notice.

I pick it up and it says,

I'm dying.

This is it.

This is what it feels like to die.

By now, the girls have discovered the blocks-of-inappropriate-behavior and they are building grand estates for their squinkies with them. Little red and black Jenga blocks are speading like an oil spill across our pew and into the spaces around and under us! I can't keep track of them all! What if one gets left behind, or the people next to us see the block that says,

or how about

Are you kidding me?!

I can't stop sweating.

We have to get this cleaned up and out of here, like yesterday.

Aaron can't believe we even OWN this game and denies ever playing it when we were in college.

I'm pretty sure we played it once with Dave, Leisha, Kurt, Tessa, Keith, Arianne, Jen, Emily, Marissa, and Lance. In our defense: as a group of innocent/naive Single Mormon BYU coeds...it must not have gotten very interesting.

Because I am sure that if any of us had drawn

and done anything other than just gallop around the room like they were riding a horse

then we probably would have remembered the details of this game a little better.

Be Mine, Valentine

Some photos to accompany Aaron's post:

I didn't take any pictures of us the night we went out to see Mamma Mia.

I really wish that I had, because we looked pretty decent.
It was a fun show. I do like the movie better, but you just can't beat Meryl Streep and Amanda Seyfried. The actress that played Sophie in the play looked and sounded just like Maeby from Arrested Development, and I had a difficult time not wondering if she was actually just a 16 year old that was skipping school and living a double life where she pretended to be a professional actress/movie producer ;)

On the actual Valentine's Day, we decided to go to dinner as a family.

Here we have Corbin, eating everything in sight, including a napkin and some crayons.

And here is Quincy cutting up her food, but not actually eating any of it.

Reese ordered cheese pizza with bacon on it, spaghetti, and an orange italian soda. Quincy had a cherry italian soda and some bread. Corbin ate a full loaf and a half of bread. I probably ate the same. Everything was really good. I'm in love with the spicy romano chicken bowtie pasta there. Yum.

We kept things pretty simple for Valentine's Day this year.

Reese and I made her homemade valentines on one of the days that we were snowed in. Half of them open the wrong direction, or the writing inside is upside down, but I think they are the cutest things ever.

For Quincy's valentines, we downloaded and printed the valentines that "cousin Jenny" (that's what my girls call you, Jenny...cute, right?) designed for her work. We attached them to little boxes of conversation hearts. I made peanut butter chocolate suckers for my girls and the kids in my preschool class, with a note that says, "You are a hoot!".

And since it was Jacob's last day of preschool, his also says, "I will 'owl'-ways be your friend."

For my Valentine, I purchased no lingerie, just showed up for dinner dressed the way he likes me best: sloppy ponytail, jeans, and a t-shirt. Nothing fancy.

but not just any old tshirt, either (y'all know how Aaron feels about tshirts)...

I wore a Lakers shirt

...to go with the Lakers shirt that I got for him for Valentine's day. (Can I just point out that buying my husband another tshirt is a sign of true love? 'cuz it is.)

His and Hers Lakers shirts.

Now we can be that couple.

At least it's not his and hers matching haircuts. (Flowbee, anyone?)

Happy Valentine's Day!

I Chose My Love and I Love My Choice

For the past few years, I have been saving.
About a year and a half ago, I really started saving.
Cash.
In an envelope. Stashed.


I wanted to surprise Aaron on our 10th Wedding Anniversary with a vacation fund. I know you probably think it is totally lame and unsentimental to give my husband CASH for our Anniversary, but it isn't like that, at all.


It's an act of love, as all $2915 that I have saved, so far, has not come out of a paycheck.
It isn't money that I just moved from one bank account to another and it isn't from my preschool, either. It is cash I have saved from babysitting, our summer garage sale, birthday money, etc.

{See that, HolleeAnn? "never underestimate the power of small change. Cha-ching!" hahaha}

It is one thing to have money in your account. But that money has been spoken for.
Budgeted for living expenses, college funds, retirement, food, new car, whatever. We have a vacation fund. This will just be like icing on the cake and mean we can do extra fun things on that vacation.

"This is found money, Jerry!" -George Costanza

I also had a plan that the money that I end up saving by using cloth diapers would be deposited monthly and added to this little fund. Cuz that way, when Aaron asked 'where all the cash came from', I could honestly tell him 'it is a reward for all the $#!t I have had to deal with!'


So yeah, I have a money stash.
I also realize that this makes me sound a little bit like a granny-with-getaway-cash-under-her-mattress, but whatever.

I wanted it to be a surprise, and if it went into the bank, it wouldn't be.

And weird, tacky, unsentimental, lame, crazy, or not...wouldn't YOU love for someone to give you $1000?

I thought so.

Unfortunately, 5 months early, my Big Secret came cRaShInG dOwN last night, when I was foolishly adding some money from babysitting yesterday to the stash while Aaron was home.

(Do you see where this is going?)

Since I knew I was getting close to my $3000 goal, I (again, foolishly) decided to count it.

(Don't do it, Meg! Don't count the money!)

There I was, counting out the bills, like a little kid does when she is saving up for a new toy, when in walks Aaron.

And I am standing there with an armfull of money.

I think he thought I was planning to run away, or something.

BUSTED.

Happy Anniversary, My Love.

He loves my unsentimental, lame, thrifty, crazy-paranoid-granny of a gift, and we looked at a map and, like we often do, we started talking about where we are going to go on our Big Trip.
And more than the actual gift, he was surprised by my ability to keep it a secret for so long.


He decided it wasn't fair for him to be the only one receiving an early present, and told me he bought tickets for us to go see this, on Saturday!


I LOVE this musical. Can't wait! I hope the roads are clear enough by Saturday to get to Fayetteville!
Happy (Early) Anniversary to him.
Happy (Early) Valentine's Day to me.