Be Mine, Valentine

The girls have colds yet again. So Valentine's Day was full of tired, cranky fussing this year. Miss D had a fever and both girls' noses were running like crazy. But I did manage to get some cute shots of them dressed up for Valentine's Day and even got a smile or two out of poor D.

I did not have an outfit picked out, but when I looked in their closet for something with hearts for them to wear, I found these adorable dresses. They had been a birthday gift from a friend of my mother in law and I had completely forgotten that they were bedecked with hearts. You can't see the pink hearts on D's dress but they are there and look adorable. A friend of mine crocheted the heart headbands for them last year. They fit them better now and look so cute.

The day before Valentine's we painted cards for Daddy and the grandparents. The girls and I made thumbprint hearts.  Miss T was not a fan. She still needs to take her time getting used to having paint on her hands and I wasn't about to let her play with acrylic paint. D loved it but was so eager to paint that trying to position her thumb to make the heart before she slammed her thumb down was hard. After making a few thumbprints, we moved on to heart stamps. I taped a toilet paper tube in the shape of a heart and dipped it in paint for them to stamp. I held on to it too and guided them, mainly because I was afraid of the paint ending up all over.

I had the oven going for awhile in the afternoon. The first thing was roasting a whole chicken. I saw the idea of putting on a bundt pan on Pinterest and wanted to try it out. I cut potatoes and sweet potatoes to place along the bottom of the pan and then stood the chicken on up over the hole. I had foil underneath just in case but nothing leaked.

I was afraid the skin would burn so after letting it brown for 20-30 minutes, I placed aluminium foil over the top like I do with the turkey every year. That worked fine. The chicken turned out fine but there really wasn't much of a difference between baking it flat on the cookie sheet and doing it this way. Some of the potatoes on the top ended up really dry because I didn't bother to oil them since I thought they would soak up all the chicken juices. The ones on the bottom were delicious so I would recommend a few less potatoes/sweet potatoes or oiling them first. All in all the vertical roasted chicken is not a Pinterest fail, but I am feeling rather meh about it.

Then on to the cookies. I have made these chocolate chip cookies once before and they were so delicious. So I decided to try to give them a Valentine's look but that was basically a fail. I did have the expectation that they would not keep their shape that well but I was really hoping that I would be wrong. The problem was the cookies are so thick -- each cookie takes a third of a cup of dough.

They looked like cute hearts when I cut them out but spread out into a not quite heart shape while baking.

Some look pretty close to a heart but hassling with the cookie cutter was not worth the final shape. I also unfortunately got distracted by fussy, sick babies and let them bake a little too long so they are not to die for like last time. Disappointing but still not a bad cookie. Next time I will have to be more careful.

My husband has been really busy with work the past few weeks with long hours and no weekends off. So I gave him a break and bought myself tulips from him. They are so pretty. I always prefer tulips on Valentine's to roses. Something about having the bulbs to replant and renew versus cut roses that just die seems a better symbol of love to me.

Hope everyone had a happy Valentine's Day!

Finger Painting

Today I decided to try out finger paints with the girls.  Now we have done some painting in the bathtub with pudding, so this wasn't something completely foreign to them.  But having a variety of colors and painting on paper at their high chairs was definitely something new and different.

I made the edible finger paints in a pot with 1/2 cup cornstarch, 3 tablespoons sugar, 2 cups of water and food coloring following a recipe I found on Pinterest.  Heat it up on medium heat and take it off the heat when it reaches a thin pudding consistency.  I let it go too long because I was not paying it as much attention as I should have.  But I just thinned it out with more water and it was fine. 

It turned out much sweeter than I expected.  I was worried the girls would be more interested in eating it than in painting with it.  Luckily they are past the worst of that stage.  Although some ended up in their mouth, they were too busy playing with it to be that interested.

 

I taped down some blank card stock with painter's tape thinking the tape wouldn't tear the paper but it did unfortunately.   I also cut out some masking tape heart shapes to block the color to make little Valentine's Day cards.  I will still salvage the paintings with some modgepodge, but that idea is a fail.   Bummer.

I made it easy on myself and gave the girls both red and blue but yellow only to D and green only to T.  This way I can tell whose is whose even though I haven't labelled them yet.  I always make sure to do something like that otherwise it gets too confusing.

After the girls had fun for awhile (including getting some paint in their hair, on their face and mixing the paint together in the cups), I decided it was bath time.  I wiped their hands and brought them and the paint up to the bathtub for some more fun.  I got some cute videos of them painting the walls and each other.  Then I washed it all away and scrubbed them up.  We had a good time and though it was a bit of work, at least it kept them busy for a long time and did not end up being too messy.