Valentines

As a couple, we have never been big on celebrations. Covid and the fact that we have only ate inside a restaurant twice in the last twelve months made it pretty certain Valentines would be low-key this year.

And you know what? It was. And it was fine.

 

We are getting ready for a big trip in a few weeks and Daniel has some general vehicle maintenance he needs to complete before we leave. This is a big deal to him. Having a clean garage to work in, is also important to him.

 

So we spent the weekend, as a family, cleaning and organizing and getting this cleared so he could pull the new truck into the garage for maintenance. Did I mention the fact that it is so big that only half can fit in at a time? Or the fact that there is only 5 inches of clearance (total) on the sides?!?

 

 

So this year, Valentine's was mostly about supporting him. In the end, that supports family goals of getting on the road. And I am ok with that. There weren't flowers or a fancy meal. I did pick up chocolates for all of us, and Isaac requested take-out from our local Chinese restaurant. 

 

And it was a good day. 

 

To top things off, the boys have been working hard at building there own stuff while I helped Daniel. Jack built a little workbench, completely on his own. It was strong enough he could stand on it when he finished. Building appears to be his new favorite hobby.

Mohaus Schoolhouse Week 23

We started our week with donuts due to a #momfail. I had thought I placed an order for groceries, but the order never went through. Since we went out of our way to get the groceries, we decided donuts were in order.

Besides donuts, this week looked a little different from our previous weeks. The main difference being that Valentine's Day fell in the middle of the week and we invited homeschool and preschool friends over to celebrate the holiday with us.

This was our second year to host this type of Valentine's Party. I hope it's a tradition we keep up.

We were supposed to host a similar party at Christmas, but Daniel and I got really sick the night before and it kind of derailed our entire December month in terms of school.

Such is life, sometimes you have to roll with the unexpected.

Since we had spent Wednesday with our friends (20 kids plus six moms! in our house), we opted to meet Daniel to go to the Chattanooga RV show instead of trying to coordinate a Friend Friday. Again, we are flexible and Friend Friday can happen any day of the week, we just try to be purposeful in meeting with other families when we can.

So the kids and I met Daniel downtown and he led us through a series of passages over the street and through parking garages to get to the convention center. I think the kids thought that was a grand adventure in and of itself.

After taking the time to look inside almost every RV at the show, we were all exhausted but also excited and anxious to get our own camper out of storage and start our camping season!

We read through several great books this week, including the Jack Tales (our Jack is fascinated that there are so many stories about "Jack" and Isaac is probably annoyed for the same reason!).

We are learning a lot from reading 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, including a brief overview about submarines, Papua New Guinea, and the Great Barrier Reef. Jack asked if he and Isaac could go scuba diving at the Great Barrier Reef when they were bigger. I love how the world of books is opening up the world to him!

In Math, he has been learning how to multiply and divide with 2s and 3s this week, and has got perfect scores on all his work. Math continues to be his favorite subject. Along with math, we are all loving the game of Battleship. We play as much as possible.

He finished reading aloud The Secret Chicken Society to me, and we learned some facts about raising chickens.

Extracurricular continue to be robotics class, basketball and swimming. He is loving all three and gets better at all every week.

A Look Back at February:
Week 21 (Jan. 28-Feb. 3)
Week 22 (Feb. 4-10)

A glimpse back at our school year: 
January
December  
November
October
September was our trip out West
August

2019 Valentine's Cookie Party

We hosted our second annual Valentine's Day Cookie Party this year and had twenty kids attend, along with eight moms!

I should have taken a picture because my driveway and street were filled with the most mini vans I have ever seen. The pizza delivery guy had no problem finding the house for the party!

This is the fourth cookie decorating party I have hosted, and we have grown in numbers from the original three families with six kids in attendance!

I have learned a few things along the way...

1) Expect some degree of crazy and be okay with it. This is especially true if there are going to be twenty kids under the age of 8 running loose in your home.

2) Keep the food simple. I ordered pizza, made coffee for the moms, juice boxes for kids and fresh fruit. Dessert was cookies that the kids would decorate and I had each family pay $3 per kid (moms ate free!).

3) Make the cookies ahead of time. The first couple of times I did this, I had the kids help roll out the dough and cut out the cookies, but we seemed to lose momentum when we had to pause to wait for the cookies to bake.

4) Limit the number of cookies. I used to make a somewhat unlimited number of cookies. This year I made enough for each kid to decorate two and had some leftovers. The leftover cookies are still on my counter.

5) Don't make a big effort with the activities. I had everyone bring Valentines to exchange and bring a box (or plastic grocery bag) to collect their items. The kids passed out their Valentines and then commenced playing in the basement until it was time to eat.

6) Be okay with the mess (see #1), it's probably going to be crazy and messy.

7) Accept help. My friends are so sweet and helped pick up the mess and even swept the floors before they left. My roomba took care of the rest.

8) It's okay to let your preschooler skip to school to stay home and enjoy the fun!

Our party was a success and I am so glad that we can get together like this a couple of times a year.

This year I changed up my cookie recipe and made chocolate sugar cookies and tried icing them with marshmallow cream (straight from the jar!) and also strawberry flavored icing. The chocolate cookies were a success! Here is a link to the recipe I used. I made three batches because my cookie cutters were big.