Happy Valentine's Day!!

Tristan's teacher asked me to bring brownies for their Valentine's Day party. I found some heart shaped cookie cutters and decided I would try to make heart-shaped brownies. I wasn't sure how, or if, it would work, but they turned out really cute. I just waited for the brownies to cool a little bit, then I greased the cutter with butter and cut away. I was able to get the exact amount I needed for his class. I was pleasantly surprised at how well they turned out.

The kids were all excited about their Valentine's Day parties today. Tristan took his Valentine's box to school yesterday and it was a big hit. He announced at dinner that he had the "coolest" box in class and everyone thought it was cool that you had to put the Valentine's in the monsters mouth.

Emeline was all dressed in her Valentine's outfit, and of course her boots. Tristan is having a sock-hop at school today, so he is dressed as a greaser. Notice Evelyn has on two different socks, which she insisted on wearing today, even thought she has plenty of clean, matching socks.

 

A close up of Tristan with his hair slicked back. He looked so cute! Hubby and I celebrated last Friday with a fun date night. Today we celebrated by being sick. It really stinks to be sick (and exhausted) on V-Day, but I made it a little better by bringing home Panera for breakfast. Can't wait to see what the kids bring home from school.

Valentine's Crafts

Thanks to Pinterest I found some crafty Valentines here that were simple enough for me to fee comfortable with! I'm not very crafty. Basically, all you had to do is print, cut, and decorate. Perfect for the kids and I to tackle. Between all three kids we had to make 32 Valentines. Luckily Emeline and Tristan were able to help me with the cutting. Evelyn tried to help, but she's just not that skilled at cutting yet. Tristan was able to write all of his Valentines, which also cut down on my work load.

After we cut out the Valentines out and wrote names on them, the kids decorated them with heart stickers.

This was Emeline and Evelyn's favorite part.

After they were decorated we put suckers in them. You are supposed to put googly eyes on the suckers, but we didn't do that because we used blow pops which tie on the top. I still think they turned out pretty cute and the kids enjoyed making them.

I think they turned out pretty cute. These are the ones for Evelyn's class. The writing says "Happy Valentine's Day" all around and has hearts in between. Such a cute and easy idea!

Tristan had to make a box for his Valentines at school. It was supposed to be made out of a shoe box, but we didn't have one so we had to buy a small box at Wal-Mart. I also found this idea on Pinterest, but we modified it a bit. Dad and Tristan had fun working on this project and I thought the ties on the shoes were a nice touch. After this picture was taken they added his name on the top in big, blue letters. It looks awesome! I love that it has a huge opening so all the big, candy Valentines will go in easily. I think it turned out great!

Football According to Tristan

Tristan was really into watching football this season. If football was on he was either watching the game or running in every few minutes asking who was winning. If we weren't watching he would come and tell us the score every few minutes.

The past few days it has been beautiful, but cold, and Tristan has been recruiting all of us to play "football" with him. I put football in quotes because it is not exactly like football you see on TV or have ever heard about. On this particular day he divided us up into teams, the Giants and the Titans. Originally the teams were the Giants: MA and Tristan, the Titans: Emeline, Evelyn, and me. As you can tell the teams were completely out of balance. Here's how "football" is played in Tristan's world.

It starts off looking like this. He places the ball on the ground and then orders everyone to step away from the ball. He determines how far everyone is from the ball. Then he yells "hike" which means everyone takes off running towards the ball to see who can get the ball first.

If your team gets the ball first you run towards your goal, which is marked by a particular leaf on the ground. Tristan can tell you exactly which leaf marks each goal. Obviously, Tristan is much faster than Evelyn, though she is working on making a tackle.

Tristan has changed his course to avoid Evelyn tackling him. She is pretty good at tackling, she just lays on him and won't move. Pretty genius.

Then Tristan crosses over the goal and dives, very dramatically, to score a touchdown.  MA tried to teach him how to hike the ball. Tristan was interested in the for a few minutes and decided to try. He quickly dismissed this method when MA hiked the ball directly into Tristan's face. Apparently, MA forgot to tell him to put his hands up to catch the ball when he yelled "hike." After several minutes of tears Tristan decided his way was superior.
He continues to want to play football everyday. Last Saturday he even tried to recruit the guys putting in our new windows. It was hilarious. I guess we will continue to play Tristan's version of football around here!