Valentine's Day...McSteininurley Style

Very rarely do I have my act together but this Valentine's I wanted to bring the homemade back to the holiday. Inspired by the idea to live simply, we began our preparations over the weekend.

Making Red Velvet truffles

Over the weekend my youngest and I made Oreo truffles and Red Velvet truffles. We had a good time and even had a magical moment. I asked him to read the recipe as we went through the kitchen and pulled it out. He got to the Oreos and looked at me with a curious face. We don't buy a lot of sweets so he was thinking there would be none. I told him to close his eyes and we should wish together that there would be Oreos. He squeezed his eyes tightly as we chanted, "I wish we had some Oreos." Then we began searching. I let him discover the package I had hidden away and he was thrilled to see them appear! After putting all the cookies in the bowl and realizing he wanted some more, he tried chanting again. I told him only one wish for the day. :-)



We started off the morning with homemade Cinnamon Muffins made from my homemade Crock Pot Yogurt.
Can you see how proud I am? :D


 


We were wild about this Valentine craft from the Tip Junkie. The perfect place for our truffles.

 



This little lady stole the show!

We had an additional family with us and all the girls took turns playing with her,

reading to her, & even taking walks with her

Of course the day is not complete with out an edible craft!

This week we had a total of 4 families: 3 teachers, 6 girls, and 4 boys. We had preschool, elementary school, middle school and high school and even attacked some difficult subjects. I truly am thankful for my partners in crime. They make it look easy! 



A family favorite

And tonight we are watching part 2 of a family favorite...

Pride & Prejudice

A few years back, my then 13 year old fell in love with Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet while staying at my mother's. My mother has never been much of a TV watcher instead she offers adventures outside and a modest library from my dad. She finally settled in with a good book. Little did she know that day she would fall in love. At first it was a bit of a struggle to read through but she persevered because she was fascinated with this couple. Over the years we have used this classic in our school.



Last year in British Literature one of her exam questions was "How does the author (Jane Austen) catch and hold the reader's attention (pertaining to Pride & Prejudice)?" Prior to the exam we discussed this question and mapped out possibilities. For my daughter, she decided that is was Austen's ability to bring these characters to life and the varied qualities they posessed. She chose three to discuss in detail on the exam.
We also used Pride & Prejudice for our dictation exercises. I asked her to pick a favorite book, although I was pretty sure I knew which one she would chose! ;-) From there I asked her to pick a selection for our studied dictation. This was her first time doing dictation and so she looked at me and said, "You're going to read it to me flat, right? You're not going to read it in funny voices." I asked her why that mattered and she replied, "I just don't want you to ruin it for me." I knew from that conversation that we had made a wise choice.

This week we are sharing it with friends for movie night!

Think of a Happy Little Thought...

We believed in our idea - a family park where parents and children could have fun- together. Walt Disney

And so we did just that...family fun together. A couple of weeks ago we loaded up the family (Yes even our dog) and headed down to Disney World. Growing up in Florida, I have wonderful memories of Disney World. One year, the whole family camped on the property for a whole week. Of course there was only the Magic Kingdom back then so we had lots of time to explore. I can also remember loading up on the big yellow school buses for Hooray Day at Epcot and a even had a school field trip to Hollywood Studios.

This year we decided to wait until the crowds died down and tried to hit the four Kingdoms during their "slow time." The first day we woke up early and headed for the Magic Kingdom. We were pleasantly surprised to see that Disney does indeed have a slow time. With virtually no wait on all of our rides, we were able to truly enjoy the magic. At one point my husband said, "That's it! From now on we are only vacationing during September."

Fireproof the movie

We are looking forward to this. My son loves anything the Kendrick brothers put out.
He is counting down the days until September 26th!