…#2! One day late but I rushed that entry yesterday so I could have time with Ken to celebrate Valentine’s Day! So sometime in the near future this will be the photo gracing our family wall!!!

I cannot believe he is so grown up! Looking back at his baby curls and pudgy cheeks he is so big now!

I can also finally share what I made Ken for Valentine’s Day… a Welsh Love Spoon. I found the directions to make a VERY simple version here. Some day I would love to buy him a REAL spoon like the amazing ones in this gallery. I used the symbol chart included on the UK site…

For Valentine’s Day supper we had delivery Chinese. I tried onion cake (yummy) and we had won ton soup, spring rolls (so good) and then a beef or chicken and lemongrass bowl with vermicelli. It was so filling, we had enough left over for the kids to enjoy as breakfast  this morning!!! Our usual special date tradition – a picnic in the living room.

Another of my eBay purchases came today. The most expensive one actually. I spent around 8.00 on lengths of coloured ribbon. 15 different colours that I am already concocting hair clip plans for.

So, the step by step instructions for yesterday’s coffee filter flowers:

First you need coffee filters, markers, a towel, spray bottle and pipe cleaners. You take your coffee filter and on one side colour a design or pattern.

Once that is done you lay the filter flat on the towel and spray it with enough water to dampen the whole thing and make the colours run.

After the water dries we rolled or squished it together and then tied the centre with a pipe cleaner.

I think this would be a neat way to talk about absorption or even to show colour mixing. We used these flowers to talk about giving presents for Valentine’s and how the ones we made looked like other flowers – like roses.

We spent the bulk of our homeschooling time finishing up our frog activities. I found two site with some wonderful frog information. Weird frog facts, and All About Frogs for Kids and Teachers (although there are some word and sentence errors on this second link as well as some dead links). We did most of our frog learning online this time round due to an issue with my library card but it has been fun. YouTube is full of videos (once you weed out the ones that are just cruel or stupid) and we have had fun looking online at pictures of different frogs. The plan is to make our way to the zoo on Sunday to see what we can learn about their frogs there.

The kids have been using the books I got everyone for their birthday party. Zander’s is a colour by numbers which has him practising sounding out the words for the colour names so that he knows on his own (for the most part, I mean BEIGE how is he going to get that one?) what colours he needs for his pictures.

I finally have all the information I need for my stepsister’s wedding sampler. The logo for the portion of the air-force her husband is in, the colours she likes, the names they use… the date… now to find a spare minute with Ken to sort it all out! Oh and a trip to the local thread store to pick out some blending filament (what can I say I love the shimmer – it is so worth the frustration). My goal is to mail it off in enough time to allow for framing if they want, but basically to be SURE it makes it in time.

We are planning on taking advantage of the meatball deal that starts on Thursday at IKEA – 10 piece meatballs with mashed potatoes only 99 cents! The kids (and Ken and myself for that matter) LOVE their meatballs! Tomorrow we are supposed to head to The Mall and wander around T&T and check out different Asian foods. I need more soy beans and the kids would love a dragon fruit. Now to just get through the evening without the kids coming out of their rooms a dozen times… please?

Yours truly on Valentine's Day