After the Sugar High Sets In...

I hosted a little Valentine playgroup party at our house on Monday. My oldest is part of the sweetest little playgroup...8 boys...ALL the EXACT.SAME.AGE!!!!! Their mommas are some of my favorite people in the world!!! Love them!! There were about 12 kids under the age of 4 running around my house that night. We consumed way too much sugar, played our little hearts out, and made these PRECIOUS Valentine bags courtesy of The Teacher Wife. If you don't have her Valentine unit, you MUST!!! It's darling...even for the littles!!!

My boys handed out these Valentines {thank God for Pinterest ;)} I ended up giving my kids the little "love bugs", too!!!

Yesterday, I was WAY too tired to think about a dang thing after school. My.word. That party took it right outta me. It was a CRAZY day full of WAY too much candy. When I got home, I had two VERY excited boys and slipped right into my sweats. Elastic is SO forgiving :)

We had the most fun little chocolate fondue bar at our party yesterday. Yes...I had a few servings.

The kids had the absolute BEST time and ohmiword. Things got crazy. My parents coordinated this cute little Minute to Win It game where the kids had to transfer Skittles from one plate to another using a straw. SO fun!!! The winning team got bragging rights and even MORE candy to add to their stash!

I picked up my boys and took them out for a little date right after school. Usually, our little family of 4 goes to Snuffer's every Valentine's Day. We started this tradition while I was pregnant with Landon. Who doesn't love hot dogs, cheese fries, and milkshakes on Valentines?! Well..Mr. Spouse had to work last night and he specifically requested we wait for him to continue our tradition. SO...I've absolutely got my elastic pants on today ready to devour even more fattening food tonight :) Instead of our favorite little restaurant, I took my boys to McDonald's for 2 hours of playtime and ice cream last night. BRING.IT.ON. Not a soul in the entire place!!! Best date ever!

I knew my little itties at school would be suffering from a serious candy hangover today. What better way to treat a hangover than with the exact same thing that made you feel all fuzzy in the first place?!?!? I pulled out the leftover kisses and hugs this morning and we started out our day with a taste test. The kids had to try both candies and decide which they liked best. We graphed the results when we were all finished.

Seriously, as nervous as I was to start the day with more candy, this little activity couldn't have been better!! They were SO excited AND they rocked their little graphing skills. Turns out we love kisses WAY better than hugs :) If you're looking for a way to get rid of all of that extra chocolate, you can grab a copy to download by clicking the pic below.

I wanted to do a little literacy piece that tied in to what we were doing in math, so I had the kids write about which they liked better...{people} hugs or {people} kisses. Then they got to create their own little candy hugs and kisses to match :) They thought this was hysterical! I found this idea on Pinterest, but I don't think I pinned it. If you know where this idea originated, can you let me know?!?!? I'd love to give a shout out and link back!!! For this little craftivity, I just cut out a class set of construction paper kisses and had the kids cover them in foil. They glued on googly eyes and then added some glitter squeeze paint for the smile. Love it!!!

I wanted to put more of my leftover candy to good use, so we did Abby's Sweetheart Snatcher activities today and OHMIWORD...AMAZING!!!! I was going to do this for my formal observation last week, but I ended up doing something not as exciting instead. Honestly, I'm so glad I waited til today because this was the PERFECT after-the-sugar-high-sets-in activity. They LOVED it!!!! SO much fun and SO engaging!! This is another "must have" in your arsenal of Valentine goodies!!!!

I'm STILL without a computer and it's driving me absolutely CRAZY!!! I'm dying to catch up!!! However, I gotta say that it's pretty nice going to bed at a normal hour instead of staying up and playing around on Pinterest :) Now it's off to stuff my face full of cheese fries and fried pickles. Nothing says "love" like a heart attack ;)

Oh, and for those of you who have recently emailed me to ask if I've ever gotten any not-so-nice comments and how I handle them, well, I found the perfect post for you to read!!!

You can read more about it at Home Stories A to Z.

TOO funny!!!

Happy hump day, sweet friends!!! Friday's almost here!!

Snow Day Stats

So…which of you has been the lucky recipient of a snow day, or two, this week?! Don’tcha just love those days?! I thought we’d for sure have one Monday because the entire city shuts.down. at the sight of flurries. It snowed cats & dogs & fluffy white rabbits on Sunday. You KNOW I was up about an hour earlier than normal checking the local news to see if our district was giving us a day to cozy up by the fire. No such luck, but I did get to sleep in. We were on a 2 hour delay. I’ll take it! Since snow is such a novelty in these areas, I knew the kids would have nothing but SNOW on their minds, so I rearranged my Monday plans and we had a little snow day in the class. Mercy. Since a lot of you will be returning to your classes tomorrow after getting a few fabulous days off, I thought you might like this for your babies.

Graphics courtesy of Digi Web Studio

{click the pic to download}

I had the kids break up into groups and survey their classmates. After they tallied all the data, they went back to their desks and showed the data on the graph. Then I had them complete the Interpreting the Data sheet. When they were finished with all that, I let them take construction paper and draw their favorite snow day activity, cut it out, and glue it to a big “SNOW DAY 2011” mural we have hanging outside of our classroom door. My firsties loved it and it was an awesome way to channel all their snow day energy into something productive :)