The Craft Crow has a great video tutorial for these adorable Q-Tip dotty cards.

Decorate a door, window, or wall with this clothesline of hearts from Artsy Fartsy Mama.

Nothing is sweeter than chocolate on Valentines! Let your kidlets create their own box of chocolates with chocolate playdough from Mom to 2 Posh Divas.

Prudent Baby has some great non-candy ideas for Valentine gifts, along with free printable bag labels.

Second Story Window has a wonderful Valentine busy bag activity for download.

Lorie from Reading Confetti tells about the Hershey's Kiss scavneger hunt her children enjoyed.

Does these snacks look adorably yummy? They're incredibly easy too. G*rated tells you how to put them together.

Need a bag to put all those Valentines in? Putti Praprancha used hearts to create cute little animal bags.

Are you kidding me? Pie on a stick? Our Best Bites shares all the how to details.

If you're into fabric crafts and fancy your girlies dressed for the holiday, check out this appliqued hearts shirt tutorial at One Crafty Home

Pin It

 I know this theme is better suited for Novmeber. But my just turned five year old son got this set out the other day and was having a blast with it.

The idea is simple. Each card has an uppercase letter in the top left corner. Each turkey has a lowercase letter on their tail feathers. The child decides which lowercase letter matches the uppercase letter and then clips on a clothespin.

 To put together this activity for you child, you will need:

Tukey Hunt cards (printed from Making Learning Fun)

A printer

Cardstock (or copy paper if laminating)

Laminator and laminating sheets (optional)

Corner rounder (optional)

Clothespins

Print and cut out each card. If you do not plan to laminate the cards, print them on cardstock.

Fit as many cards into one laminating sheet as you can and laminate. Repeat until all cards are laminated.

Cut apart and trim. Round corners, if desired (highly recommended).

Place the activity in a zippered bag and pull it out when needed.

Pin It

In our house, there's nothing like masking tape to spur on a bit of imagination. And at less than a dollar per roll, who can argue with that? It's also very easy to peel off of anything, which makes it very mom friendly.

This post is the first of a series called Masking Tape Fun, where I will showcase various crazy and imaginative things my children have done with masking tape.

The other day, I laid out this tape road map for the kids. Ethan (3 yrs.) drove cars on it for at least an hour, but it was Daryn (just turned 5) who spent nearly the entire day down there.

He decided the TV/printer stand was a hospital, so we made a "drive through" for the ambulance and a large parking lot.

We used some of the larger toys, like the microwave and the toddler toolbench, for houses. Notice the giant pet hamster? Don't you wish you had one in your front yard?

We also made squiggly roads leading out to a couple barns (one from the Uno Moo! game and one from a Moon Dough set).

A few months ago, before Christmas, we went a bit more simple and just created a small parking lot.

 If your kidlets are into vehicles, they may just love this idea.

Lasso the Moon is hosting a link up that is right up my alley. I'm not sure how many of you have discovered Pinterest, but it is an incredible wealth of ideas and inspiration for any topic you can think of. Today through Wednesday, anyone can link up with a link to their favorite kids' activity pin (original URL, please).

Go check it out and link up you own. You're sure to come across some great ideas.

Here is the link up post. And this is the post with an explanation of the general idea.

Have fun! And try not to spend all day on Pinterest. Ha.

Pin It

Organized Simplicity

by Tsh Oxenreider

A couple weeks ago, I alluded to the fact that the norm around here has been complete cluttered chaos more often than not. (And if you followed my personal blog, Unsolicited Advice, before now… well, then that fact was established long ago.) Trust me, it was not/has not been a result of laziness. I would love to sit on the couch all day and do “nothing”, but that hardly ever happens. Why then the mess?

The plain, dumb fact is that there’s just more stuff in this house than I can ever manage. And there’s more stuff – responsibilities and the like – in my life than I can ever manage. (Unfortunately, the ones I’d love to do away with, I can’t… like housework. Ha.) But mainly, it’s just the stuff in the house… too much of it.

When I have too much stuff, the house is always a mess. The kids are easily bored, because they can’t find the good toys amidst the junk. I can’t cook dinner, because there are no clean dishes to cook with and no clean counter to cook on. I can’t get everyone ready to go out the door, because I can’t find socks for everyone. (Don’t even ask about the shoes.)

You know what all this equals? STRESS. Stress makes me a kind of unlikable person. You know the kind that doesn’t always speak with a loving voice and later regrets speaking at all.

Well, Tsh Oxenreider's book, Organized Simplicity, addresses just this issue. But rather than just giving a list of ways to organize your house, she gets down to the soul of being organized.

In the first half of her book, she examines what it means to live life in a simplistic fashion.

She guides you through creating a purpose statement for your family. This ensures that there is a purpose to every decision made, every activity chosen, and every item brought into the home (or left in the home).

This leads naturally to the issues of time management, financial stewardship, and taking joy in the simple things.

The second half of her book is a “nothing like it”, room by room, step by step guide to decluttering your home. This is the part of the book you will come back to again and again and again. It’s where I’m currently stuck (in a good way).

If the idea of decluttering overwhelms you, as it has me, then this book will be your life saver. Tsh tells you exactly what to do and how.

She suggests marking out ten days on the calendar and hitting your entire house, room by room. I would love to do this, but with four kids running around, and everything else on my plate with looming deadlines, I haven’t been able to.  But that has not been a problem. I just work on it one space or area at a time when I get a chance. Her process makes it so easy to do so.

I ignore most appendices in the books I read, but not this one. It is a treasure trove of forms, natural cleaning and hygiene recipes, suggested books and more. Don’t skip over this section.

But honestly, the most encouraging words in the entire book are contained in the last chapter.

“Live life in the present, and accept that simple living is a process, a journey.
“It’s a noble pursuit for the rest of your life. Enjoy the process of collecting less stuff, amassing more wisdom, having more time to relish in the little things, and coveting very little.”

Tsh’s book, Organized Simplicity, is right up there with Crystal Paine’s, The Money Saving Mom's Budget, on the life changing meter. Even if you do not apply all the nuggets between the covers, it will change the way you look at your home and your life – forever.

(Disclaimer: This post contains referral links.)