Valentine’s Olympics

We threw a big ol’ Valentines Party at 4 Oaks Academy! And it included the Valentine’s Olympics.…..Kids had a ball! 🙂

Hugs, T

www,rvoilers.com/blog

L O V E

We had a fantastic day of fun to celebrate Valentine’s Day this year, including a fancy feast for the 4 little Fergusons, and date night for TWO!  SO FUN!  Come on over

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Hugs, T

Valentine’s Day Desserts

  Valentines Day is tomorrow, so I wanted to share a few Valentine-esque and romantic desserts for you to enjoy with someone you love, or heck, eat them by yourself!!!!   These have been blogged before, so please click on …

Bakeaholic Mama & Valentine Mailboxes

Hi everyone! I am guest posting today at Bakeholic Mama, so come see me there.  Carrie (aka Bakeaholic Mama) is, and I quote……

A “Food obsessed wife and stay at home mama of 3 kiddos and a black lab.” 

  She and I just recently got to know each other via Facebook. I love meeting new people! Come on over to Carrie’s place and say hi today!

  I am sharing the “Non-Recipe Recipe” for Raspberry Sweeties:

  Just in time for an Oh-so Romantic celebration with the one your soul loves.  🙂

No, not Super Bowl, Silly…..

VALENTINES DAY!!!!!!!!!

(via)

  Speaking of Valentines Day, check out this Oh-so ADORABLE idea I found at The Anderson Crew blog:

Valentine Mailboxes for the little people in your life you love most.

  You’ll need:

~Some old candle stick holders, my mom got mine for me at Goodwill for $2.00 a piece. {No I didn’t remember to photograph the before. They were plain wood. BORING!}

~ A mailbox for each kiddo, found in the Dollar Spot at Target RIGHT NOW!  {Go, run! Before all the other moms snag them!}

~Letters: stickers, wooden, magnet, you name it.  I REALLY wanted to find big colorful letters in all different prints, but alas it was not to be so. I check Walmart AND Hobby Lobby and finally settled on these sequin ones.  Not what I wanted, but cute none the less.

~An old magnet.  You know, like the free kind people give you with their business card on it.  You’ll be cutting this, so make sure it’s not your Insurance agent or someone important.  Then cut to shape and glue to your letters with a hot glue gun.

 ~You could glue direct to the mailbox, but JUST IN CASE we ever switch colors between kids, or I want the letters off for say cleaning purposes, I decided magnets work best for us.

~ A can of spray paint for your old 2nd hand candle stick holders. {Please don’t make me go all the way out to the cold shed to take a picture of the black spray paint, use your imaginations, ok?}

You can do any color spray paint you want, but I chose black to match the letters I had to buy since I live in a tiny town with no choices.

 {Sigh} Where or where could 2 inch tall colorful print letters be? 

  On a bright note, at least since I used magnets to attach my letters I COULD switch them out some day, should the perfect colorful letters reveal themselves to me!  

After the candlestick holders dried overnight, we attached them to the mailboxes with hot glue.  (Do something stronger, they keep falling off!) Then we used tape to make a ‘hinged door’ rather than the slide on and off lid these mailboxes come with.  Lord knows I don’t need mailbox lids getting lost, and yes, it would happen with Paxton into everything as much as he is!

Here is the finished product:

Ta-da!

Cute, right?!  I will be filling these with love notes, pipe cleaner sparkle hearts, stickers, heart window clings and GASP! maybe even a piece of candy. 

{Don’t get too excited, I am thinking like 3 M&M’s or something. Hey, my kids don’t get candy at ALL, they will be THRILLLLLLLED!}

The kids know they have a new treat awaiting them when I put the flag up.  I know this is opposite of how it works in the real world, but who cares, they LOVE it!

 Go forth, buy mailboxes and make your kiddos smile!

 Then come on over to the oh-so fabulous site of Bakeholic Mama!

~T

 

Shared at:

Meet Penny

Happy Valentines Day!

   It’s hard to believe just 4 short years ago, I was anticipating the birth of our first son today.  And was I ever sad to see my Valentine’s Day Due Date come and go with no baby!  (He waited until 8am tomorrow to kick things into gear.) 

  It was not our most romantic Valentine’s Day to say the least! 🙂

When we were first dating we got ALL fixed up for Valentine’s Day, I mean tux and all, and went to Wichita to a fancy-schmancy restaurant with our good friends, Melinda & Nate. 

 Ah, the good ol’ days!  🙂 

  Can’t quite imagine blowing the money on a dress, tux and fancy dinner now, but it sure was fun then!  How things change!

  This year, we celebrated on Friday, so today will probably feel like just another day!  Shopping for a new outfit is a thing of the past, so I just wore something from my closet that I’ve worn a million times. Oh, the sensible joy of it all! 

    My best friend, Kasey & I, planned a night on the town.  Check out our hot dates….

    We got the hook up from our amazingly cool friends, to dine at The Newport Grill, a new upscale seafood restaurant in Wichita. In addition to freshly flown in seafood, they offer dishes using locally grown beef, chicken and fresh, locally grown veggies too, whenever possible. 

  It was AMAAAAZING!  We totally got VIP treatment thanks to Monty’s job title.  (Well that, and the coolness of Monty himself) 

  We started off the meal with Duck Confit and a few swigs of some complimentary wine, to “bring out the flavor of the duck”.  I am NOT a wine drinker, but it really did just that! 

  We also tried the Rock Shrimp Cigars, which are delicious little shrimp roll ups with pineapple sauce and sprouts, so stinkin’ amazing!

  This is the part where the photos stop, because course after course of the most amazing, decedent food was coming out, and I was FAR too busy oohing & aahing (and let’s be realistic….feeding my face) to take any more!

  I had the Surf n Turf;  Lobster and Filet Mignon with asparagus and potato wedges.  We all passed around our food, so I also got to taste a fantastic Arugula Salad with Goat cheese, an award-winning Salmon dish with homemade ravioli,  Ribeye with the most incredible sauce I have ever tasted, and some awesome homemade, melt in your mouth tater tots.  Even the bread and sea salt butter are good at this place.  5 stars all the way!

  Dinner was brought to us at an efficient but leisurely pace, the server never bringing out the next course until we were all through with our existing course.  If you are a “Foodie” and you live to eat rather than eat to live, THIS is the place for you.  We dined for 2 1/2 hours!

    Before heading to our movie, we ordered dessert:  Grandma’s Banana bread made into a Bread Pudding, with bananas, a rum-caramel sauce with ice cream…it was absolutely delicious!  The guys had us in hysterics and we laughed until we cried because apparently, dessert was the quietest part of the whole evening.  All they could hear was Kasey & I saying “Mmmm!” and our spoons clanking!   🙂  

  Afterwards, we went to see the movie “Just Go With It”.  What a great date night movie!   It was such a fun night, and so good to get out of the house for the evening, in honor of Valentines Day!

  Thanks for babysitting Nana! (Sorry all I had to feed you was Mac n Cheese and Popcorn Chicken, Ew.)  And a big thanks to the Noggles’ for a fantastic evening of fine dining!

    So, on to today………

Valentine’s Day on a Monday.  Oh boy!  I am currently in scruffy house clothes doing a kazillion loads of laundry, how romantic!  Back to reality, right?!   🙂

Back in the olden days, Dale might have sent flowers today……

(Something FABULOUS like this! Except RED where the purple is.)

  …but I always tell him to save his money. 

  Darn this sensible side of me! 

  We just don’t spend money on this stuff anymore.  Maybe because we are lazy in our love, or maybe because it seems like a waste when we could be spending that $50 on groceries. 

  The last time Dale sent me flowers randomly, the first sentence out of my mouth was, “What did you do?!” Followed by, “No, you may not go on a week-long golfing trip, so don’t ask.”   🙂

  Maybe one day we’ll splurge on this sort of thing again, but for now, we just do lovey-dovey Valentine cards. 

Here is one I got for Dale:

    Ok, not lovey-dovey, but he’ll think its hilarious. Don’t worry, I have a mushy one too, but I won’t share it on here.   

(I am sure you’ve read 100 just like it at Hallmark and can use your imagination.)

    Well, I hope you enjoy a romantic evening with the one you love!

  Or, just snack on your kid’s leftover Valentine’s Day party treats, while you deal with cranky, sugared-up kids, and wait for your hubby to get home from work, so you can MAYBE watch a romantic movie before falling into an exhausted, we-have-4-kids-and-a-mortage-induced slumber…

Hey, whatever works!

~T