Surprise Valentine Treats

With the hubs being out of town on work over Valentine's Day Babycake and I have been busy making some surprise treats to give him when we visit over the weekend. We all exchanged our gifts before hubby left as we didn't plan to visit, but after being the only parent for a week, I'm done and ready for a change of scenery and a possible break.
To be honest, I didn't come up with these treat ideas on my own. I didn't even find/search for them on Pinterest! (shocking I know) Instead, I was watching the Today show and they had a little tid-bit on DIY valentines. Since we'd already given hubby his gifts, I thought it would be a nice surprise to receive more on our visit! We made Valentine Crackers and oreo pops. Babycake had a great time making both, though I have to say she was much better at making the Valentine Crackers than oreo pops. Here are pic of our work and I've added the videos of how-to at the bottom.

Valentine Cracker supplies

Finished Valentine Crackers

Oreo treats drying

Our finished surprises for Dadda/hubby!

Working on surprise Valentine's for our hotel staff!

Letter of the week Oo, Pp, & Qq

Even though I've been feeling better the past couple weeks, I haven't been able to keep up with creating new crafts and new letters for each week. So here are our letters we did over the past couple months.

For Oo week, we made an octopus, orangutan, owl, ostrich, and oranges.

Pp week we made a parakeet, polar bears, penguin, and peacock. We also learned about panda bears but failed to craft that.





For Qq week we made a quilt, quail, and queen. This has been one of the more difficult letter weeks. The Qq sound just seems to allude her. When we sing our little jingle on what sound the Q makes, she'll sing along, but if I ask her immediately after she can't tell me. Although it's difficult for Babycake to remember the sound, she still enjoyed crafting. The queen was pretty fun since we made the q the queen's face and hair. Babycake enjoys dressing things up.

I'm hoping to be able to keep up the craftiness while I'm feeling well, and share this fun quality time before her baby brother arrives in a few months!

Life updates

Hi All,

It has been a very long time since my last post. It's been pretty busy in this house the last few months. For the most part I've been very sick due to pregnancy. Because I've been so sick (all day, not just the morning) I haven't had the energy to make crafts and activities for poor Babycake. Thank goodness the hubs is a pretty amazing guy and makes up for my lack of play during the day when he gets home. In the last month or so I have been feeling much better and Babycake and I have finally been able to socialize again and play.

Also in November my aunt and I launched our new business Past Unique. It's pretty awesome. My aunt Laura is a genealogist and already has her own genealogy business. She loves being able to give people the story of their heritage, but really wanted them to be able to celebrate their family in a way that was more than a report that would be read and then put on a shelf somewhere. So we created Past Unique- her vision of a kind of tangible genealogy.

Since we launched right before Christmas we've been pretty busy. I absolutely love the products we make. We're also just now starting to have Create & Take Parties- think wine and canvas at your own home. Great right?!?!?!

So with the pregnancy and starting a business we've been super busy here and have been attempting to maintain a kind of routine. In the last week or so I've felt like we've finally hit our stride, so of course this week we're adding a new twist. Hubby went out of town for work earlier this week and will be gone until the end of next. So here I am pregnant, working, and playing single parent for 11 days. We've had to do this before, where I stay home with Babycake for two weeks while the hubs is working out of town. During those weeks I've often praised single parents for their ability to work all day and care for their children in the evenings and weekends all while staying sane. Now I'm working 2-5 hrs a day, trying to keep Babycake entertained at the same time, all while waddling around with my huge baby belly. The house is a mess. I've been trying to clean a little a day, but I'm just so tired that it really hasn't been getting done... at least not well. Needless to say, even though it's only been 4 days, I'm ready for the hubs to return. Just having the extra hand in the evening to help with dinner, or to play with Babycake would be such a relief! I can't imagine what it will be like next year, when hubby will have to work out of town again and I'll be home with two kids! Maybe the kids and I will just head to grandma's for a couple weeks ;-)