Spring Fever and Valentine's celebrations

The weather here in the south is absolutely beautiful this week and it makes everyone in our House of Curls very cheerful! We have been spending every waking moment outside in the warm sun.

We had a fun trip to the zoo and have enjoyed several parks in our little community. We have eaten our lunches on the back deck, our snacks at the neighborhood park and one night we even had our dessert outside. My husband got a little fire pit for Christmas from his favorite nephew and we decided to finally put it to work.




We are excited to report that we will also be enjoying this spring time weather in our front yard because the crazy massive ramp is now gone! Wahoo! Doug is making such amazing progress that he no longer needs to be in a wheelchair and therefore doesn't need the ramp out front anymore. We are praising God for His healing and care!

We really enjoyed celebrating Valentine's Day this year with the curly girlies!

Oldest girlie and I hosted a little party on Sunday for our sweet friends and fun Mommies.

We decorated cookies that were made by one of our favorite "big" girls (check out her blog here).

We made all kinds of fun cards and valentines.

Several of our friends got really creative in the making of their valentines!

Stamping seemed to be a kid favorite.

There was some mother-daughter bonding while crafting the heart wreaths.

Our oldest friend gave some lessons on valentine origami. He made these great paper boxes.

Even our busy boy buddies got in on some crafting! They made heart lollipops and Cupid's arrows.

Best of all, the kids had a great time and we enjoyed precious time together with our friends!

On Monday, we had our very own valentine's day family date. I've been trying to use our fine china more often and this was a perfect excuse. We had a yummy meal consisting of chicken Parmesan, angel hair pasta, green beans, and garlic heart rolls. We all ate enough that we didn't even need dessert, which is good because I was too tired to make it!

This is a little twist on a very easy recipe for Chicken Parmesan:

4 pieces boneless thin-cutlet chicken breasts
8 oz bottle Italian dressing
1 cup Italian breadcrumbs
1/4 cup garlic salt
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 cup shredded Romano and Parmesan cheese
1 jar of your fav spaghetti sauce
1 box pasta of choice

Place chicken breasts in a dish and cover with Italian dressing. Let chicken soak for 2-4 hours or if you have time, overnight.

Preheat oven to 400. Mix breadcrumbs, garlic salt and grated Parmesan cheese together. Dredge the dressing soaked chicken in the breadcrumb mix on both sides and place on a baking sheet lined with aluminum foil and cooking spray. Cover the top side of the chicken with 1/2 cup of the shredded cheese.

Bake chicken for 20 minutes. Flip chicken over, top with the additional 1/2 cup shredded cheese, and bake for 10 more minutes.

Serve chicken with pasta and marinara sauce.

Curly girlies definitely loved the yummy meal and were quite ecstatic about all their valentines from their friends and family. I myself absolutely love my homemade cards from the girlies and their sweet Daddy. I am also quite fond of the little box of chocolates I got too!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentines day and a fabulous sunny week!

Lots of loving!

Here in our House of Curls, we LOVE to celebrate Valentine’s Day! We've been talking to our girlies about how much Jesus loves them and how it is His love that spurs us on to love each other. We daily converse about how we can show love in our own family by speaking kind words, helping each other, and obeying Mommy and Daddy.

Last year for Valentine’s, we made these cute little mailboxes for each other.

They are a really simple craft that kids of any age can help make. We fill them with love notes, coupons for acts of service, and of course, sweet treats. It’s really fun!

The girls enjoy getting to “deliver” us a hand-drawn picture or card and they get super excited to receive simple sweet notes that say “I love your laughter” or “I love it when you help me put away your clean clothes.” Simple encouraging words go a long way for little girlies.

For our sweet friends, we have been busy stamping, taping, and crafting away. My Mom gave me a Cricut machine for Christmas and we have been putting it to good use these past two weeks.

We have been cutting out hearts and leaves to make these cute lollipop flowers for classmates.

We crafted these precious love bug hearts for our youngest friends.

Both are so simple to make and require lots of help from the child!!

For the love bug card:

1. Cut out medium-sized hearts from cardstock paper.

2. Stamp child's thumb print onto the card.

3. Decorate the bug, using a fine print marker, google eyes (or colored jewels), and strong glue (I like E-6000 which can be purchased at a craft store).

4. Personalize the opposite side with a "catchy" phrase and sign child's name.

For the lollipop flower:

1. Cut out 3 or 4 small sized hearts and a leaf.

2. Position hearts so they look like a flower. Flip hearts over and tape down the back side to form the flower.

3. Punch a hole in the middle of the flower. Fold each heart to give a crease which helps take on the shape of the flower.

4. Write name on the leaf and tape down onto the back side of the flower.

5. Insert lollipop into the hole.

This last craft has become a House of Curls favorite, especially for youngest curly girlie, because it involves tearing up paper! What fun for a two-year-old to be given permission to tear something up!

Using the cheap paper plates, I cut out a large heart. I gave both girlies some scrap paper to tear up. Oldest girlie decided to cut the paper with scissors.

After we got a fair amount of torn pieces, we glued the paper all over the plate heart.

When finished, it turned out to be a really cute collage of colors!

The best part of the craft was that our youngest really could make it all by herself, which is something that she takes great pride in doing! This is a perfect little homemade gift for grandparents, teachers, and of course, Mommies!

Happy Valentine's, all you love bugs!