Our Valentine's Tradition

I once was so fortunate to have Valentine's dinner with my best friend and her family. Her mom always likes to make a meal based on the theme of the holiday. I thought it was so fun, that when I got married I wanted to do something similar with my family. So I thank her for being my inspiration for this meal.

On our first Valentine's as a married couple, I made a romantic, Valentine's theme meal. We had a green salad with pink ranch dressing, baked potatoes with pink sour cream, a delicious red punch, and beautiful heart shaped meatloaf. Some people are not lovers of meatloaf, but I really like it. I try to make mine on the "lighter" side. Here is the recipe I use to make our special meal.

Ingredients:

1 pound ground turkey

1/2 cup onion, chopped

1/2 cup carrots, chopped

2/3 cup quick oats

1 egg (or egg substitute)

2 TBL ketchup

1/2 tsp basil

1/2 tsp oregano

salt and pepper to taste

In a small saucepan add a little oil or butter, onions and carrots and cook until the carrots and onions become soft. Set aside and let cool for a few minutes.

In a mixing bowl add turkey, oats, egg, seasonings, ketchup, and using your hands, mix together. Add the carrots and onion and continue mixing.

Divide the meat mixture into equal size portions (about 6 -8, depending on how big you want your hearts). Form meat into heart shapes and place on a cookie sheet that has been covered with parchment paper or foil. You can cover the top of the heart loaves with more ketchup if desired.

Bake in a 400 degree oven for 20 - 25 minutes.

I have made this every year for my family since we've been married on or around Valentine's day. I've even invited our extended family over to share our Valentine's tradition. Sometimes we have a fun red jello or you could make a red velvet cake. I'm so glad that I decided to make this a tradition for my family. Maybe this is something you want to start doing with your family too!

Here is where I'm linking up this week:

Lil Luna

Somewhat Simple

I heart Naptime

Simply Sweet Home

Disney T-Shirts

The shirts looked even cuter on the kids than they did on my table. Now if only those little 2 would cooperate for pictures.

We sure had a fun trip and the kids didn't get too far with those red shirts on!

Valentine Medallions

After completing our Disney t-shirts, I got all excited to start on something for Valentine's Day. I was at Target and saw in their dollar spot some very exciting finds! They had packages of 12x12 scrapbook paper for $1 and packages of foam craft stickers for $1. I scooped up some supplies and started on my Valentine's projects.

For this craft I needed:

scrapbook paper

paper cutter

glue gun

glue stick

scissors

foam stickers

cupcake wrappers (I had on hand)

I cut my papers into strips. The size and number of strips will vary depending on what size medallion you want. I'm demonstrating an 8" medallion, so I need (3) 4" x 12" strips of paper.

For a 6" medallion you need (2) 3" x 12" strips of paper

For a 4" medallion you need (1) 2" x 12" & (1) 2" x 6" strips of paper

You can follow the same instructions

Fold paper strips in an accordian fold that is between 1/4" to 1/2" wide. Then glue the ends of the strips together using your glue stick. You want to make a complete circle with your strips, so when you glue the last two ends, glue them with the pattern of the paper on the outside (as shown).
Your accordion circle should look like this. Then using both hands (I'm only using one), gather the top of the accordion circle and push down toward the center, extending the rest of the medallion. It will try to flip back up at you, so I cut out a circle from my paper and hot glued it to the back of my medallion.
Using cupcake wrappers, glue gun and foam heart stickers, I embellished the front of the medallion.
I attached some twine with my glue gun to the back of the medallion for hanging.

My finished medallions!

Then I hung them from my light fixture in my kitchen above my table.

To complete my Valentine's look, I put red and pink items in my apothecary jars and topped them with these large conversational hearts that my mother in law gave me a few years ago. She also made me a Valentine table topper that goes perfect with the decor.

While I was checking the dollar spot at Target, I also found some cut out paper hearts. I made a couple smaller medallions, cut out some letters with my cricut machine and made myself a FAUX Banner.
I call it a faux banner because there is no string or ribbon holding it together. I just taped it to my big mirror in my entry way to look like it was really hanging. I think it turned out great and my son loved helping me (although he didn't really help, but he thinks he did because I let him sit by me and glue some scraps to a paper).
Not too bad for spending $3 at the dollar spot and using things I had on hand! Now let the season of LOVE begin!!

Disney T-Shirts

So far in 2012 I haven't felt very crafty. I did manage to make a super cute valentines clip that I learned to do over at Somewhat Simple! The only other thing I've been working on is a project that involves our next adventure!

That's right! Our next adventure is going to be to one of my most favorite places, DISNEYLAND! We are going to go with my husbands family and decided that kids all need matching shirts. The husbands nixed the idea of matching shirts for the entire family. Which means less work for me!! :)

At any rate, I sure had fun in Photoshop Elements making these designs to go onto our shirts. I made the basic Mickey Ears for the boys and added a bow on Minnie Ears for the girls. Then using my free Walt Disney font, I added the initial of each child. We decided to not do entire names on the shirts. I really don't need strangers calling my 3 year old by name all over the park.

After I got everything the way I wanted, I printed them on HP Iron on Transfers for Dark Colors. See my tutorial here from a previous post. I got all my shirts and iron ons ready to go.
With my very HOT iron and following the instructions, I think they turned out really cute!! The kids will look adorable and everyone will know they go together.

We can't wait for all the fun to begin!!

If you have an upcoming trip to Disneyland and would like a copy of my Mickey/Minnie Ears jpg to create your own family shirts, just email me.

Here is where I will be linking up this week:

I Heart Nap Time

Somewhat Simple

Simply Sweet Home

Lil Luna

A New Year!!

Here's to 2012! A new year for changes and memories! As I look back to my goals from last year, I did OK. Of course there is always room for improvement, so I look forward to improve upon those goals for the coming year.

Last year was my first year as a stay at home mom. I have absolutely loved being at home and with the kids everyday. I tried to get a handle on my housework (without much success), a handle on the laundry (washing, folding and putting away which was one goal I actually did well on), and doing more with the kids (other than turning on the tv and letting them sit there all day).

At the beginning of 2011 my goal for getting a handle on my laundry was this:

2 days a week are laundry days. Wash, fold and put away on those days. I chose mondays and thursdays. I didn't worry about the laundry on any other days. I have to say that this worked great for me! I found I was doing less loads of laundry a week than I had been when I wasn't sticking with my 2 day theory. Of course when we would come back from vacation the schedule was changed up a bit, but for the most part mondays and thursdays were laundry days. This year I am going to continue with this routine and see if I can perfect it a little bit better.

My next goal is going to improve on getting a handle on my house work. One of my favorite blogs will have a guest post every now and then from the Clean Mama with great tips for cleaning and organizing. One of my favorites from this last year was:

Finding a Cleaning Routine that works for you:

One of the tips that she had that I have found works great is to clean the bathroom while you bathe your kids. I don't clean the bathroom every time I bathe the kids and often wonder to myself, WHY? It is so quick and easy. She also had a great printable for planning out your routine. When you get a second, check it out. Somewhat Simple

Doing more with the kids is the next goal my husband and I both want to accomplish this next year. As we work on our patience, we are going to set down our cell phones, remote controls and keyboards to just spend time with our kids. Allowing them to help with the tasks around the house and to go for walks to the park and run around in the backyard. As a family we want to be more ACTIVE!

And lastly I want to finish our little girls room so by the end of 2012 she is in a big girl bed. We were going to have a toy/game room that I had painted one wall with stripes. Now I have decided I want to repaint it and find some furniture on craig's list and at yard sales that I can fix up and create something special for little miss. Here is the before picture and as I attack different aspects of this room I will post progress. I'm still not sure how it will come together, but I have 12 months to figure it out!!

Hope you all had a new year, and you're excited for all the changes and new experiences that I'm sure 2012 will bring!