14 Days of Love at the Toms'

Within the last couple of months I have joined some pretty neat websites and followed some blogs that have ideas ranging from easy, quick meals to couponing.  Most of the sites are run by SAHM's (Stay-at-Home-Mom's) and I always have the intention of doing some of the ideas that they throw out there, but the reality of it is, I can't.  I have six kids, I can't spend a day and a half refinishing the bathroom cabinets or making pretty little costumes for my kids to play in for no special occasion.  Yet I still find myself "trying" to do some of the cutesie-pootsie things featured on these websites.  One thing that I managed to get done, though it's not as pretty as the ones I've seen, is I created an advent calendar that leads up to Valentines day.  Each day one of the boys draws out a heart shaped card from the calendar that coincides with the date and on the back of the heart there are instructions on one special activity to do for the day.  It ranges from "make a Valentine for Grandpa" to "Go around the table at dinner time and tell everyone one thing you love about them".  I even have to say, my husband was even in to it.  I of course systematically put certain things in certain days.  For example, yesterday the card that was pulled said, "Enjoy a Valentine Themed Breakfast"  So, we had heart shaped strawberry scones with strawberries and topping.  I had to save that one for a weekend.  There was no way I was going to try to make scones and get all the kids up and going during the week.  Each morning the boys are excited to see what the calendar has in store for them, and in the end, we are working together as a family.

Valentine's at the Toms'

I'm not very good at being original.  But I am cheap.  Sutton and I always try to come up with ideas for his valentines to make them a little different.  Last year they were individually wrapped moon pies with alien occupied space ships (courtesy of my Cricut) that said, "You're Out of this World Valentine".  This year though, I think I even out-did myself as far as the expense.  Total cost (minus the man hours, minutes really) was one dollar and six cents.  And that was for the bag of Pixy Stix from the dollar store.  Sutton and I had looked up ideas on one of my favorite sites, familyfun.com as well as looked at a Current Stationary Catalog.  We took a little bit from this and a little bit from that, and this is what we came up with.  I used my Cricut again for the body and eyes (the second layer on the eyes are actually garage sale price stickers), a whole punch, my Close to My Heart acrylic stamps and glue stick.  Sutton and I enjoyed putting these together as our special one on one time.  Then earlier tonight while I put the finishing touches on some of them I had a thought.  It's been said, and I certainly will not argue, that the oldest child reaps benefits that his or her sibling may never have.  These are things such as more baby pictures and new clothes.  Then it occurred to me, do I really plan on putting all this effort in to the valentines for six kid's class mates just a few years down the road, simply to save a buck?  I would like to think so, but that's a lot of Valentines. It is nice spending the time with him to put them together each year, because it is just special "Mom and Sutton" time.  No brothers are allowed, no interruptions.  Just the two of us.  So I would like to think that, yes, I will do that with each of my kids when they are in grade school.  We will just have to start in December instead of the week before Valentines day.  Okay, maybe not that early, but I will have to be organized!  We'll see!