Love Weeks- Day 10

The school Valentine's.

I tried to keep them simple since there are twenty kids in Monkey's class.  So we bought these Disney playing cards, added a little treat, and wrapped them up.

I attached a little note to the top that says "I think you're a winner."

And a small snippet of my kitchen's open shelving.

                  Oh and here's the link to Last years Valentines. 

~Mrs. Dunbar

Love Weeks- Day 8 & 9

Day 8

A little something for me.

I thought perhaps I'd get something new to wear, but then the Pottery Barn catalog came in and, well, I just knew I wanted this basket. Along with a pair of Converse,( I had to order to order 3 pairs to get free shipping on the boys Converse.) Red was all sold out in my size.

Day 9

The Heart Attack

This is a spin-off of something the Heart Attack I did for Mr. Dunbar on our first Valentine's Day. The boys were so excited to help me put up the hearts as a "special surprise for Daddy."  When you walk into the Great Room at our house this is mainly what you see.

I used scrapbook paper that I got at the Dollar Spot at Target (8 Valentines sheets in the package) and Pom Pom yarn (priced at $4.99, but I used my  40% off coupon.)

Tonight I'm going to add a couple hearts to each ceiling fan in the boys rooms. For a special surprise for them in the morning.   You could also tape large hearts to skewer sticks and stick them in your front yard along with a sign on the front door telling your loved one that they've been "Heart Attacked."

Love Weeks- Goof Up Day 7

Okay, so I goofed. Technically I did nothing yesterday. But, and that's a big "but", we did have a fun weekend away from home.

The Dunbar's went to the snow. 

And my beliefs of "How do people do this?!?" Still stand.

Snow is a lot of work. Tons.

But Monkey and Bogie had a blast.

The Daddy's lit up this old fashioned stove thing to dry all of the jackets, gloves, boots, and snow pants.

The children kept busy, either playing on their travelling games,

(See Patty, even 4 year olds want and IPod Touch)

waiting for the snow, rain, and sleet to let up, or eating snacks.

The Daddy's worked extra hard to shovel the cars out of the snow at the end of our stay.

Like hours, and these Daddy's are not used to shovelling snow.

They did a great job and got us all home safely.


Love Weeks- Will resume tomorrow, or tonight, if I can get my act together. I've got MOUNTAINS of laundry.

~Mrs. Dunbar

Love Weeks-Day 6

The treat.

Raspberry Swizzle.

(the inspiring picture)

As a special treat I made the guys Raspberry Swizzle from the Farm Chicks. Only I didn't re-read the directions before making mine. Not a good thing to do. I was supposed to heat the raspberries and I left mine frozen. I told Mr. Dunbar, mine doesn't look as pretty as theirs. Um, duh! If I had read the directions... ah, well. Such is life.

It's the thought that counted, right? 

When I pulled out the ingredients, including a bottle of sparkling cider. Monkey looked at Bogie and said, "Cool, we get to drink beer!"

HUH?

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And one more little snippet of my house. This is a dresser I had to put in my mudroom for more storage. But since it leads to my kitchen and I look at it all of the time, I gussied it up a bit. That window up there is where my heart for Mr. Dunbar was drawn a few days ago.

PS: The bows have now been re-done to match eachother. Was that bugging you as much as it was bugging me?

Are you going to go make a Swizzle now?

They were still pretty dee-lish even if I didn't follow the instructions.

~Mrs. Dunbar

Love Weeks-Day 5

The dinner.

Mr. Dunbar's favorite thing to eat is Nachos.

He loves em. Like really loves them.

So when I decided to make his favorite dinner for him, I got off the hook pretty easy.

I always use foil, sprayed LIGHTLY with olive oil. Then I put one layer of chips down topped with cheese, put in the broiler, just enough to let the cheese melt. Once that happens, I top with another layer of chips and cheese, put back into the broiler, just enough for the top layer of cheese to melt. At the end I add all of the toppings, chicken, homemade refried beans, avocado, sour cream, and today jarred salsa.  I know I know, should have made the real thing. Next time.

I ate some, but he mainly finished off this tray of nachos.

It's his one food weakness.

Me? I have like thirty food weaknesses, like this month; Girl Scout Cookies.

But this dinner wasn't about me, it was about him.

Does your husband have a favorite dinner?

Love Weeks- Day 4

One of my new blog friends Jenn at Seizing My Day posted about a little girl named

Kayla a few days ago.

Kayla is in the hospital with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.

She spends a lot of time there in the hospital, but she loves to receive mail. So the boys and I put together a small Valentine for Kayla, and will mail it out today.

Because love is not for us to keep to ourselves.

You know, that whole "Love thy neighbor as yourself."

Two small packs of stickers and a small note... both boys signed their names.

And on an entirely different note, here is what my door on the wall looks like for now.

(I didn't make the garland, I bought it last year at Homegoods.)

Hugs, ~Mrs. Dunbar

Love Weeks-Day 3

The love sign- surprise.

I had every intention of writing this on the mirror in the bathroom this morning while Mr. Dunbar was showering because it always gets foggy when I take a shower. (I forget to turn on the fan.) Mr. Dunbar always remembers to turn on the fan and so there was no condensation on the mirror.

This is my improvisation.

A small window in our kitchen, a picture taken, and e-mailed right to his work.

Love Weeks-Day 2

The frame.

I got this idea from Tatertots and Jello a few weeks ago. She created a Whimsical Valentine Wreath out of cupcake liners. She is uber creative and comes up with the best ideas ever. Now I don't have a huge need for wreaths, but I do like picture frames. So when I was at Target last week, I picked up one of their $1.99 frames and a package of mini cupcake liners for like $2.

It turned out pretty well. But I should have bought a white frame, I don't know what made me pick up this brown thing. Oh well, I just hot glued some pink ribbon around the frame.

This isn't the picture I'll keep in here, but until my Valentine's Day pictures of the boys arrive, Mr. Dunbar and I will have to do.

And now for our special project of the day:

I used the hot glue gun on the frame above, but the boys couldn't help me with that, so this morning we made another picture frame using Elmer's School Glue.

Monkey said it made him happy to make things.

If you do this, make sure you draw a long skinny heart, as the liners really fill it out.

Then I took a frame that is up most of the year in our house, took out the glass, figured out which way it looked best and then cut my 4x6 rectangle from there.

I like this becasue it's just a splash of pink and red. You know, with 3 men in my house there really isn't that much pink around. But sometime this week I'll show all of my little splashes of Valentine's Day.

So, we had an impromptu act of love.

Creating something together.

Love Weeks-Day 1

(UPDATED: At the end)
I love the month of February. The love month. Of course it is over commercialized and Hallmark will make a killing, but I've decided to do something everyday leading up to Valentine's Day. Everyday for the next two weeks I am going to do something special for my guys, either the little ones, Mr. Dunbar, or all three, or maybe even all four of us.

This morning the boys got the love. I made Banana Pancakes into hearts.

They were super excited. And now I'm off to go wash the mounds of dishes this breakfast created.

They had fruit bowls on the side.

Have anything special leading up to Valentine's Day?

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My friend Julie at Jam*n*Jilly is hosting a giveaway for a fabulous platter.

Go check it out and tell her Mrs. Dunbar sent you.

And I got three practically FREE personalized Valentine's Day cards from Shutterfly. I just had to pay the dollar for shipping. Hurry this ends tommorrow, Feb 2nd.  Details are HERE. Code is 3freecards.