Valentine Tea Party

Yesterday was my dear husband's birthday, so Hazel and I baked cupcakes. However we did not have time to make frosting, but had some leftover from some time and frosted a few to bring with Hazel to Nonni's (Steve's mother) so when Steve picked her up they could all celebrate. We left a few at home for Steve to eat throughout the day or at dinner (I was working through dinner, so I wasn't here to celebrate). Then left the rest to frost with homemade frosting for Valentine's Day. Then I got to thinking, I remembered Homespun With Love shared a Valentine's Tea and Cookies a couple of Saturdays ago at Sharing Saturday. I also am running a meeting tonight at church for the Stewardship Ministry. We picked Valentine's Day because no one else would touch it for meetings, however it looks like it will be a small turn-out. Anyway, I figured we could make some cookies (I still had a cookie mix from Christmas sales) and I could bring a few cookies and cupcakes to my meeting and we could also plan a tea party. Hazel loved the idea and so did Steve.

Hazel cracking an egg for cupcakes

We cheated a bit with the cupcakes and used a cake mix. However, we made it low fat by using the changes I found at About.com Busy Cooks. It uses egg whites (though Hazel did get a bit of yolk in with the egg she broke), applesauce, water, and flour with a yellow cake mix (instead of the oil and full eggs). If you are making cupcakes like we did, I highly recommend not using paper cup liners. They stick to them since they do not have the fat in them. They came out delicious and we all enjoyed them.

Cupcakes Out of the Oven

I didn't take any pictures of the few we frosted with the cheating frosting. I did cut a flower out of the top and try to frost just in the hole. They came out cute with a bit of practice.

There aren't any cookies in here?

Then today we made the cookie dough. We cheated again and used our last box of Trader Joe's Sugar Cookie mix. Hazel saw the cookies on the box and wanted to open it herself. She was a bit surprised to pull out a plastic bag of powder and one of icing and foil wrappers. I believe her direct quote was, "There aren't any cookies in here? What is this?"

I let her do a lot with these cookies. I melted the butter first so the mixing was pretty easy and she did it. Then when it got harder I took over and then we had to use are hands (as instructed on the box) and of course she wanted to try.

Then it was time to roll out the dough. She helped and helped with the cookie cutter. We are still working on her placement of cookie cutters, but she is getting it.

Then she remembered tasting the cookie dough last time. We ate the scraps after we had two pans worth of cookies. Somehow she got flour all over her. I'm glad we put her apron on first.

Enjoying the cookie dough

After baking the cookies, we made some frosting. We wanted to make a chocolate frosting. I found a chocolate buttercream frosting that I had all the ingredients for at Savory Sweet Life. I cut the recipe in half since we only had half the cupcakes to still frost. It came out delicious.

Frosting the Cupcakes

Hazel helped me frost the cupcakes. She did tell me it was hard to do. We also had picked up some Conversation Hearts to put on top.

Sorry it is fuzzy, but here are the finished cupcakes

Then we started to ice and decorate the cookies. I always find the icing packet is not enough for all the cookies. Maybe I put it on too thickly. So I always need some more frosting and we used the leftover buttercream for it.

I iced and Hazel decorated. She had fun with the candies and the sprinkles. She wanted me to get the green sugar out as well as the red, but I explained to her that the colors for Valentine's Day were red and pink (and luckily had some pink sugar) and that Christmas colors were red and green.

Then we did some clean up and stalling since it was still an hour and a half before Daddy would be home. Then we made some tea. Hazel wanted red raspberry (her favorite) and Daddy wanted lavender chamomile. I made a pot of the lavender chamomile and a small amount of the red raspberry (which I added cold water to as well). However, Hazel's looked great in the teacup for Valentine's Day.

We lit the candles and set the table in the dining room (after clearing it off) and used our good china (well our good china that can go in the dishwasher). I have a set of good china that I was given from a friend--it was her wedding china that she bought from an elderly couple on her honeymoon. Each piece is numbered and has a gold rim so it is hand wash only and I didn't dare let Hazel use it yet. My Lenox set is replaceable so we used that.

One of the bonuses to having the tea party with the good china and in the dining room is we were more aware of behavior and worked on it a bit more. Steve thinks we should do this much more often, but for now I'm going to commit to every Valentine's Day. It is such a nice way to have some together time that is fun.

A few more things to share:
I got Hazel to let me put the barrette in her hair only long enough to get a picture and even with that it involved crying.

Needle felted barrette

Our flowers this morning

The colors definitely got better with more time. Even the orange is starting to show. The purple not so much besides looking a bit blue along the edge.

Hazel in her doily stenciled t-shirt. I had mine on too, but didn't get a picture of both of us.

Hope you had a lovely day!!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

Our mantle this morning

Happy Valentine's Day!! I hope you are finding a way to give and receive love today!! I have to say I am feeling well loved with the most entries EVER on Sharing Saturday. We have decided to end our Sharing Saturdays on Wednesday since people were not really looking at the entries added after that. So please feel free to link up today and tomorrow and go check out the amazing entries we have gotten!!

Today I want to share with you about our Kids' Valentine Swap.

We have six children participating including Hazel ranging in age from two to ten-years-old. One from England, one from Australia, and the rest from the United States. I know several parents have let me know that they have gotten them off late or have not mailed them, but we figured it wouldn't matter to the kids since getting mail is always exciting. All we asked was for each child to make a valentine and send it to each of the other's with a postcard from where you live. That way if parents want to do a geography lesson they have something more personal to use.

I gave Hazel several choices of cute valentines to make and this is the one she chose. She chose the one without candy (I was surprised) but made finger puppets.

Demonstrating how to use them

I cut out the hearts (using my scrapbook materials) and punched out the holes. Then we glued on eyes and added glitter glue mouths and stickers for cheeks, nose and ears.

On the back we stamped Happy Valentine's Day and signed her name. Then we attached a pipe cleaner for arms with a sticker.

We have only received one valentine thus far. It is the one from England. Hazel was so excited to get it.

Thank you, Annabel!!

We will share more pictures as they come in.

I also finally finished Hazel's owl last night and made her a quick valentine with it.

We have been doing some heart related crafts. Over the weekend, we made the marbleized hearts from Cheap Crafty Mommy that I featured on Saturday. Hazel's favorite part of the craft was mixing the paint into the shaving cream. After that she got bored (as she did with every craft we tried). I tried using card stock and foam hearts that we had. I discovered it didn't work well to scrap the paint and shaving cream off the foam, so I wouldn't recommend it.

Foam Heart

Oh, and we used pink, red and red glitter paint for colors.

I was happy with how they came out. Then I had to decide what to do with them. I made a mobile. For the two large ones I glued two of the hearts together and wrote God on them. Then on the small ones on the undecorated side I wrote words like: love, family, peace, hope, joy, faith. Then I strung them and hung it up.

We also tried the yarn hearts that I featured from Tot Treasures. Hazel's favorite part of this was cutting the yarn. She did not like getting her hands dirty with the homemade glue, so she quit pretty quickly on me with this one.

We also tried the bird seed ornaments that Verde Mama shared at a Sharing Saturday in January. We didn't have peanut butter since Hazel doesn't like it, but we used almond butter. It was a bit messy and liquidy at least more than I thought it should be, but that may be the almond butter. I'm not sure. Again Hazel didn't like get the mess on her hands and quit (but when I finished then asked to do another craft). We hung one outside already, but it doesn't look like it has been eaten at all yet, but our bird feeder is still more than half full (in the summer it empties in less than one day) and has been for weeks now.

I hope you have a wonderful Valentine's Day!!

Playing with Flowers

Well last Sunday, there were flowers left over from a funeral the previous day at church. I got to bring some home including a purple rose. Having been inspired by Happy Little Munchkins: Petal Play which was shared at Sharing Saturday #5. I decided to try it with our rose even though it wasn't white.

I put the rose petals in a bowl of water. I didn't have any rose water to add, but the scent of the petals was strong enough for us. Hazel played with the petals in the water, swirling them around and feeling them. Then we added drops of food coloring (this is Hazel's favorite part). We watched the food coloring swirl around on its own. It was pretty.

Hazel taking a picture since I was. This is her new kids' digital camera she got for Christmas!

Then we added even more food coloring this time purposely getting it on the petals. We were hoping for results like Happy Little Munchkins, but we did not have any luck. I guess we will have to wait until we have a white rose to try it again.

We just got dirty looking water around our rose petals. Oh, well. Our petals did not absorb the color at all. We were hoping for a result like this.

From Happy Little Munchkins: Petal Play

This week there were some white carnations and white snap dragons leftover from a funeral at church. So I brought them home to try coloring a different way. Yesterday when we got home from church we filled vases and jars with water and Hazel added food coloring to the water. I then cut the ends of the white flowers we brought home and stuck them in the different colored water. We made red, yellow, blue, green (directly from food coloring) and mixed purple and orange.

The start of our experiment

Then we just let them sit there. Last night when I got home from tutoring, I found they looked like this.

Blue Water

Red Water

Yellow water

Green Water

Purple Water

The snap dragons had not changed color at all, so I cut the stems much smaller and went to bed. We woke up to see this:

Our discoveries, the colors we mixed did not really give them much color and often just one of the two colors showed up (the purple looked blue and the orange looked yellow). The snap dragons took longer, but also needed to be cut much shorter than they were. We still have them in the water to see if more time will make a difference. However I moved the carnation that was in the purple water into the red water to see what will happen.

That is our flower experiments thus far. It feels good to be playing with nature again.

Have a great day!!

Adventures Outside--Winter Nature Hunts and Play

Climbing Up Our Swingset

So on Friday, we had another beautiful day here in New England. The weather predictions for Saturday was a possible snow storm with an arctic freeze coming Saturday sometime. Friday it was suppose to be near 50, so we went outside after our Move and Groove class at the local library. First we played on our swingset and then we moved to the one we are storing in our yard for friends who are inbetween houses (and living in a condo with no yard).

On Our Friends' Swingset

Hazel decided she was the captain of a big ship (the swingset) and was taking me to the big city and zoo to live. Apparently I'm now Curious George. My seat on the boat was the green swing. There is a steering wheel in the house and thus how she was steering the ship.

Lilac Tree

Now, February 2nd was Groundhog Day around here. Supposedly the televised groundhog did see his shadow (seems to me he always will since there are camera lights around), however around here it was awfully cloudy. Well apparently no one told the trees that we are suppose to have six more weeks of winter since I saw buds on our lilac tree.

And the rhododendron also had some buds on it. As well as whatever this bush is.

Then I got ordered back to my seat on the ship which apparently can drive on the street as well since she took me to the grocery store and parked it.

This is the brook that goes along the back and side of our backyard ( and then goes underground near the house). I love having it since it just adds a peacefulness to the yard (and doesn't flood).

After we were done with the ship, it was time to dig in the dirt. Hazel pulled out her gardening tools and set to work. Then we had the idea of making dirt castles since the sand in her sandbox is too dry right now. (She is digging in my garden, but we are planning on moving the garden this year so this is a great place for her to dig.)

Muffin anyone?

Then she got smart and took out her big shovel.

Then she wanted to go for a walk and see what nature we could gather. Before we went I found a very small baby pine cone. We put it on her nature table.

See how tiny it is?

On our walk with the wagon to collect nature

Hazel found a large branch on the ground. She thought it looked like a tree and wanted to bring it home. It is bigger than her! Oh, and she insisted on carrying it home herself.

Bringing It Home

Sorry, Don't know why this one isn't turned.

When we got home, we had many sticks, a few leaves (very dried old leaves), some evergreen pieces and more sticks. I guess we will be doing some crafts with sticks this week or soon. Maybe some fairy furniture?

Hazel of course wanted to bring the large branch in. Steve let her bring it in to the craft room but not upstairs. Of course she and I are planning on finding something to put it in and make decorations for it.

Oh, and apparently we now have an imaginary dog who likes to escape all the time. We ended our outside play on her swingset--the train--and her doggie kept escaping and we would have to chase it. This has continued in the house. I love her imagination!!

I'll share some of our nature crafts and experiments later this week or soon!! Hope you had a wonderful weekend! Oh, and please check out Sharing Saturday. It will be open until Wednesday this week, and we already have over 130 amazing entries!! Enjoy!!