Valentine’s day and a birthday party…

Just a few pics I never posted from Valentine’s Day.  Lauren came home from preschool with this handprint card…

and a necklace she made for me.  She was so proud of it and I LOVED it.  These are the little moments I’ve been waiting SO long for.

I bought these cute froggy kits from Oriental Trading Company for Lauren’s class.  The teachers assembled them ahead of time for the kids to collect their valentines in.  I think they were a hit!

We got super messy baking Valentine’s cookies…

and they turned out great.  I finally found a good recipe for sugar cookie icing that dries to the touch so they can be stacked.  It actually tastes really yummy too.  You can find it here.

 

It was Lauren’s BFF’s birthday party on Saturday and it was a ladybug theme.  We put my new Cricut to work for these cute decorations for the stairway…

and fireplace mantel. 

 

The kids all got ladybug headbands, loot bags and nets for “catching” bugs. 

Here’s Lauren with the birthday girl…

They loved the beanbag game putting spots on the ladybug…

the ladybug hunt was a big hit...

  

and they also painted spots on ladybug painted river rocks.  So cute!

Last, but not least, the thank you bags full of ladybug fun. 

Nancy, you did a GREAT job with the party and the kids had a blast!

Lauren’s birthday is next month and it’s a cowgirl theme, so it’s time to start hitting it hard with the planning and decorations.  If anyone has any really cute ideas for a western theme, I’d love to hear them. 

Chinese New Year fun…

The Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix holds an annual event to celebrate the New Year.  Lauren and I met some friends there on Sunday and had a great day.  It was a beautiful 80 degrees and the sun was shining.

     

  

The pretty jacket Lauren is wearing is the same one she wore in China for the dress-up pics with the entire travel group.  I can’t believe it still fits, although a lot shorter, two years later!

New toy on the way!

I just ordered a Cricut Expression (12”x12”) craft cutter and I can’t wait to get my hands on it!  For those of you who couldn’t care less about crafting and have no idea what a Cricut is, this little beauty cuts shapes, designs and fonts in paper, vinyl and fabric (although that’s a lot trickier).  It’s been been around for years, but I finally decided I can’t live another day without one.  ;)

For those of you who have one, what do you use yours for?  Having a little one at home, I can think of tons of projects I will use this for and had plenty of times over the past couple of years that I wished I had one.  Also, printing on vinyl opens up tons of possibilities for projects and gifts. 

I just downloaded the demo version of the Make the Cut software over the weekend and it’s a lot of fun to play with.  Since I don’t want to be tied to only using the Cricut cartridges, I’m planning on using this a lot to print fonts I already have on my computer and convert images to cut with the Cricut.  Does anyone use this software already?  If so, how do you like it?