A Swinging Valentine's Day

 So Valentine's Day is not so much about romance when you have small children as it is about the love of family...Aaron and I are lucky that we have both sets of parents nearby who regularly babysit so we can go on dates, but for the past couple of years we've spent actual Valentine's with kids in tow. We had a great day this year though- a special Valentine breakfast before Aaron headed to work, and then after I picked up Rowan from school she and Retta and I played on the swings at the park and I had fun testing out my new camera. We then did something CAH-razy (by four year-old standards that is)...we met Aaron in town for dessert before supper because the ice cream shop closes at 6. We shared a banana split and then put the kids to bed and ate a gourmet meal made by Aaron at the late hour of 8:30 pm. Still enjoying a beautiful bouquet of flowers from my lovely husband and cute kid valentines scattered about the house. You just gotta love love, and Valentines Day is one of my favorite holidays..yay for hearts and flowers and swings and ice cream!

Love Bug

Just reading her morning mail

Heart-shaped marshmallows courtesy of my mom

Hot chocolate for breakfast?!

My newest love

Scoping out the Valentine's packages

Oh, those cheeks...

Love, love, love

Since Retta's too little for Valentine candy I made her a new headband

Playing in the park

Milestone: Happy Fourth Birthday Rowan!

Somehow I have now been parenting for as long as it took me to get my college degree...but this four year education with Rowan has given me so many priceless lessons about love, patience, and what is important in life. Each day I am in awe that this exuberant beautiful-inside-and-out compassionate little person is my daughter and I get to raise her. "How lucky am I?!" Rowan frequently says when she gets a sticker at the bank or is told we are having grilled cheese for supper. I'm the lucky one.

Rowan's birthday fell on the day of the epic blizzard here in Maine, so we were snowed in, which was actually kind of nice. She enjoyed a stack of four silver-dollar pancakes with sprinkles and birthday candles, a scavenger hunt to find presents hidden in our dryer, and then the rest of the day was spent playing with new presents, making cupcakes, watching a movie, and shoveling chest-height snow! Rowan didn't mind though- she loves using her kid-sized shovel, and she just kept proclaiming, "I'm having a great b-b-b-blizzard birthday!" The following day was full of more birthday hoopla- her first friend party with her little girlfriends at the YMCA pool. We did a mermaid/ undersea theme--I had lots of fun making decorations and favor bags, etc. but I realized that the kids would have been equally happy with only a few balloons to toss around. It was a great time though and Rowan seemed to really enjoy herself. We made little clothespin mermaids, played the fishing game (Aaron was the big ol' fish down on the ocean floor dispensing the treasure), ate cupcakes and went swimming. Then back to the house so that grandparents and cousins and great aunts could wish Rowan a happy birthday too. Lastly, we celebrated her birthday at her preschool, and I got to visit and be a part of her "birthday walk" ceremony, where the kids all help assemble a wooden ring that symbolizes the sun- they lit four candles around the ring and placed cards for the seasons and months around it to make the rays of the sun, and then Rowan walked four times around the "sun" holding a globe while they all sang happy birthday. Such a wonderful ritual! Happy birthday to my first-born girl, I love you more than you'll ever know. Here's to another year of laughter, snuggling, growing and learning together :) 

Snow Treats!

With a blizzard on the way, I wanted to share these two recipes for snow treats that we tried earlier this winter. For all of the years I've spent living in Maine playing snow and even eating the white stuff, I never thought to actually use it to make real food. Genius, and kids dig it too. First off, Snow Cream. You can mix up the liquid ingredients in the house, and then tote a mixing bowl and spoon outside to add the snow and make your treat al fresco. We'll be making this to go with Rowan's cake for her birthday tomorrow! Here's the recipe:

Snow Cream:

• 1/2 to 3/4 cup cream
• 4 tablespoons sugar 
• 1 teaspoon vanilla 
• 1 egg (optional) 
• 1 bowl of light, clean snow (6-8 cups)

Then, if you have a candy thermometer and are feeling slightly more ambitious, there's Maple Snow Candy. 

Maple Snow Candy:

• 1 cup of 100% Pure Maple Syrup
• 1/4 cup of unsalted butter
• a candy thermometer

Put the maple syrup and butter in a saucepan over medium heat and stir constantly. Use the candy thermometer to make sure you boil the sugar and butter to 220 degrees Farenheit. Remove from stove and after cooling for a couple of minutes, take the pan outside and pour the syrup out onto a clean patch of snow. The syrup will cool and form into a sweet treat the consistency of taffy. You can try to peel clumps of it off the snow or use popsicle sticks to twirl the maple candy onto.  

Cuteness

So this is something that I'm seeing a lot of these days...cuteness, of the tiny-but-vertical sort.

Easy Valentine Stamps

I tried a genius idea from Pinterest yesterday while working on Valentine making with Rowan- take the roll from the middle of a toilet paper roll and crease it so that it bends in and makes a heart shape on the ends- then just dip it in paint and let your kid go crazy making heart stamps all over the place. We put glitter on the wet paint hearts to dress them up a bit. Rowan loved that we were stamping with something from the bathroom of course.

Letter Pretzels

Last week Rowan and I felt like doing a baking project for our morning snack and decided to make letter pretzels from an old cookbook we had when I was a kid. It was lots of fun! Here's the recipe, and then photos of the result:

Letter Pretzels
from Kinder-Krunchies by Karen S. Jenkins

1. Dissolve 1 Tablespoon of yeast in 1/2 cup of warm water.
2. Add 1 teaspoon of honey and 1 teaspoon of salt.
3. Add 1 1/3 cup flour.
4. Knead.
5. Roll pieces and form letters- you can form letters on wax paper over a letter guide if necessary.
6. Brush with beaten egg.
7. Sprinkle with salt.
8. Bake 10 minutes at 425 degrees.

A delicious way to practice letter shapes

Retta didn't really help, but she did look awfully cute in her snowman dress