decorating for valentines day and playing with shrinky dinks and a tasty date night

A fairly low-key week again here. Emilia got sick not this past Wednesday but the Wednesday before that. Then Mira got it on Friday and Cecily got it on Monday of this week (on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day). The girls had that Friday and this Monday off because of parent teacher conferences and the holiday. So with girls being sick, it ended up being a 5 1/2 day weekend and Tuesday none of us wanted to go back to school/work. Cecily was sick through Wednesday, so we just hung out, watched a lot of TV and spent time together. Steve was supposed to have D&D on Thursday, but one of the guys was sick, so that got postponed.

Mira didn't get to play with cousins on Monday because she was sick, so to make her feel less left out, we decorated for Valentine's day together. Then on Tuesday, we made Valentine's Day necklaces. I found some #6 plastic that weekend, so we made shrinky-dink pendants out of it. Emilia drew cats on hers. Mira colored in a picture of Elsa I drew. I made a Princess Leia, and for Cecily I did a simple multi-colored heart.

To make the shrinky dinks --

First find a #6 plastic container.

Cut out the flat pieces:

Sand them until they are evenly rough all over. I used 120, 160, and 220 grit, in that order.

Using a colored pencil or paint or permanent markers, draw and color a design on the sanded side. You can see how big Mira's Elsa is in the picture of her.

If you're using it as a pendant, make sure you punch a hole somewhere to hang the pendant by. I forgot to leave room for that on Mira's, so hers hangs at an angle. Then bake at 325 until they mostly flatten out again.
You can see Mira's shrunken Elsa in the middle of her bead layout.

This is Emilia's finished pendant.

Cecily's and mine. Mine ended up being so small that I decided not to put it on a necklace. If I can find some bigger pieces of plastic, I might try again. Other than her being tiny, I really like how it turned out.

Friday we decided to do a stay-at-home date to save some money. We rented Finding Dory for the girls (which none of us had seen yet) and Steve and I had a dessert-making contest and then played some emulated N64 Mario Party together after the kids went to bed. I made churro funnel cake with ice cream and caramel topping for my entry. Steve made lemon loaf and we were both so sad when it looked delicious but tasted like melted plastic. It had to have come from the two tablespoons of lemon extract the recipe called for, which apparently had gone bad. I didn't even know that was possible! It was a fun date, though, so we may add it to our date idea rotation.

Today I made a berries and cream one with the leftover batter from Friday and it was just as good!

Yesterday I had to help with a funeral luncheon again and then Steve went to the temple after I got home. While he was gone, I took the girls to Nickel Mania. I'm really not good at those places with kids. I freak out far too easily to manage three children in that chaos and to keep my opinions/helpfulness/control issues to myself. I finally was able to calm down and let go of some of the anxiety after I won the jackpot on the jump rope simulator. It was the first time I had ever had tickets come pouring out of a machine (180 of them!) and it was like winning the lottery. So now I know, if I want to have fun in chaos, I just need to win the lottery. No problem.

Dinner with Nick and Wilda today was excellent as usual, and church was uplifting. Couldn't ask for a better Sunday. Hope you all had a great week as well.

Cecily, all ready for church and being adorable. (She was also making me want to tear my hair out with her tantrums and mess-making, so don't think it's all cuteness and rainbows. But when I get pictures like this, it's easy to forgive all that.)

I found this coat at DI for $8 a few weeks ago. It's a Kenneth Cole trench coat and I love it. I wore it to church today and I felt very fancy. :)