Valentines 2012: Love those free printables!

This year for Valentine's Day, the kiddos decided to do something a little different. In the past they've always made molded chocolates (or crayons!) for their friends. This year, we went in search of free printables on the Web.

Mugger decided to give his classmates pencils after we saw this great download at Sweet Muffin Suite. Arrows are sufficiently boyish enough for valentines, don't you think?
Bug decided to use 2 ideas we found on the web. First, she wanted to use this awfully cute valentine download from Secret Agent Josephine that I've had bookmarked for 3 years now. But then when she saw this sticker matchbook valentine idea on Alpha Mom, we knew we had to combine the two:
There were even enough designs that every classmate got a different valentine:
Then it was my turn to use free printables for valentines. Back at Christmas, I had saved this idea from Let's Explore for a Year of Dates with your child. Her printables were great, but not for me since the kiddos call us Mama and Papa, not Mom and Dad. When I saw this download at Life As Mom for free printable valentine coupons, I knew I was set.
We wanted to give the kiddos each 3 dates with Papa and 3 dates with Mama. Our outings will be:

• a breakfast out with Papa
• a lunch out with Mama
• a trip to bowling (for Mugger) or to the bounce house (for Bug) with Papa
• a trip to the bookstore with Mama
• an outing outside with Papa
• an outing to an inside destination with Mama

And then, since I had extra coupons left, I made up a few more for one-on-one time with Papa or Mama in the form of a project:

• baking cookies with Mama
• cooking a meal with Papa
• a craft project with Mama
• a wood project with Papa

So that's the list! It could take us until next Valentine's Day to get through them all, but I'm hoping that they'll enjoy them enough that they'll want a repeat next year anyways.

Extra! Extra! Read All About It!

We had quite the excitement at our house this morning when we saw that Mugger's kindergarten class made the front page of our newspaper, the Corvallis Gazette-Times (aka, the GT)!

Mugger spent last week doing extra chores to earn money for yesterday morning's field trip to the grocery store-- he spent his $6 on oranges. As for extra chores, I paid him $4 for folding and putting away 2 loads of laundry (his and his sister's) and $2 more for unloading the dishwasher twice all by himself (with some help from the kitchen stool.) He was excited that Papa got to drive for the field trip and help him with his purchases.

The second part of the field trip was the newsworthy part, though. Rather than having the kindergarteners walk all their groceries the 3 blocks to the soup kitchen, they loaded them up on llamas! Mugger even got to lead one of the llamas for a bit and was so excited to learn about how to pack them.

For all the details, according to the GT, click here. We're saving our paper copy-- the online edition doesn't have the photo that was on the inside where you can see Mugger's back as he learns about llama packing.

UPDATE: Found the inside pic in the GT's online gallery! Mugger is in the red coat:

A Spirit of Giving...

First, the back story to this post: Mugger's preschool has asked each of the children to bring in $4.00 to buy a "Jesus Loves Me" lamb from the Samaritan's Purse Gift Catalog. Here's an excerpt from the Director's Note in Mugger's ECC (Early Childhood Center) newsletter this week:

"I want to extend a great BIG thank you for the MANY lambs we will be able to purchase for children in need. One of our ECC children came into my office last week with his teacher to ask me if there were enough lambs for children. Then he proceeded to give me an envelope with $20.00, and it was enough to purchase five little lambs. This child, who is only four, gave from his savings and from money given to him for Christmas. He chose to spend his own money to help others instead of purchasing something for himself. He also needed one more dollar to make it $20.00, so he helped his dad straighten out the garage to get the additional dollar. What a heart!"

We're awfully proud of you, Mugger, and I know Grandma and Grandpa will be thrilled to hear what you did with their Christmas money. By the way, as of last Friday, the preschoolers have brought in enough money to purchase 83 lambs!