Valentines and A Peak At The 8th Birthday Party Invite

I had the card above printed from Shutterfly and sent direct to family and friends.  Apparently they sent them twice...double the love I say.  For Amelia's school Valentines,  I contacted the ever so talented, Mary Melcher...and ordered 30 of her small valentine cards.  Each unique and different...here are a few...

Amelia hand picked one for each of her 25 class mates...it took awhile and she needed a couple pieces of candy (wrappers next to her) to pull her through!

She handed them to her classmates along with a goody bag that included a pencil, eraser, heart notebook and a handmade crayon heart (had to put those in mini bags as they seemed to mark anything they touched)....of course a few candies as well.

Her teacher got one too, in her goody bin...

...there was a Puravida bracelet in a gold box, mug, note pad & pen, chocolates and a Starbucks gift card.

She made a similar bin for her Dance, Piano and Skating teachers.  Goody bags for girls in her ballet class whom she has been with for some time...

included nail polish, emery boards, bandaids, candy and stamps filled theirs.   

For Amelia there were 14 days of appreciation in her Valentine Advent I made a couple years ago...

and we had our own Valentine's Day filled with fantastical things...

In that week of Valentine's Day, it began to warm up and moisture filled the snow to where we could actually make a snowman!

We went sledding too!

Until it warmed too much and everything turned to a sheet of ice....hence an ice day for Monday.  No going out without ice cleats that day.  Which gave me a bit of time to work on our birthday invitations....

Let the festivities commence.

Hope everyone had a quiet and quaint Valentine's Day 😍

Ice Fishing and A Valentine Photo Shoot

Back East, I remember going to museums or bundling up for the zoo for field trips during the cold winter months.  None of that here...Alaskan kids go ice fishing.

Our story begins down by the fishing hole.

She was quite happy about putting a piece of shrimp on the hook.

Now to just wait until the fish bite.

Hmmm, wonder how everyone else is doing?

Is anyone catching fish?  Because I am not.

My legs are getting tired.

Getting the ice film off might help.

Oh good, a buddy.  Do you see any fish??

Hmm, let me get a better angle.

Nope.  Don't see any fish.

Guess we just sit here....maybe next time we will catch one.

For the record, they were only out for an hour and no one in our 100+ group caught a fish.  Quite fun though and an hour was just the right amount of time before they hopped back on the bus to take them back to school.

On to Valentines and coming to a card near you....

Rob picked her up at school and I had my camera ready.  The minute she got out of the car I said,  "I need a few Valentine pics." Her eyes rolled and she sighed.  I took her jacket and threw her the heart off the door.  That should do it.

It was her idea to do the heart around the face.

5 minutes later...done.  Time for homework.  

Sometimes the spur of the moment photo shoots come out the best.  

Valentine's Day coming oh sooo soon!