Valentine's Day on a budget

So, my husband thinks that Valentine's Day is a made up holiday, but according to Wiki, it originated when Roman's were forbidden from marrying so that they would want to go to war and fight and not stay home or fear for their family's safety. Saint Valentine of Rome would perform illegal weddings for these soldiers. In any case, I try not to spend a fortune since he's not on board with the holiday so much as I'd like to be.  I have 2 little girls and was able to put a basket together for each of them around $15 each. Half of that budget was I got them each a new character t-shirt. If you leave that out it would be between $6-10, because I also had some freebies lying around. 

Here's the finished basket.

Here's the supplies: Free - Elmo books I had them stashed away from last year and I'm pretty sure my mom sent them, Valentines stickers; $1 each - red and purple soft flower, 2 beanie bears from the Thrift Store, 2 water bottles from Target bins, 2 red/white chevron boxes from Target bins; $2.50 each for 2 boxes of Princess chocolates for the girls; Rachel my 3 year old got a Frozen shirt and my 19 mos old got a Doc McStuffin shirt, these were each about $8 at Target and were one of my last minute splurges.

I decided to try and make some Valentine breakfast pancakes. Here's the link to the original idea: http://www.auntjemima.com/aj_recipes/recipesToppings/recipe.cfm?recipeID=11585 The girls really loved it.

 

Valentine's Day 2014

Here are my Valentine cuties! I can't believe I forgot to get their picture taken in their cute outfits - oh well. They still had a really good Valentine's day.

the loot

Rachel with her basket

Ruth checking out her basket

The girls eating their Valentine's breakfast. The pancakes were a Pinterest idea.

February 2014 Snow Fun

We've had lots of cold, wintry weather the last few months. I personally don't like the cold, so I get out in it as little as possible. However, we did have a nice, cool day where all the snow was still on the ground, but the wind was down and the sun was out, so we decided to enjoy it while we could.

 
 

The happy child!

Making snow angels.

 

The side yard leading into our backyard has a small hill so we were sledding down it for fun. Here's Rachel making a "path" in the snow using the sled.

The igloo Isaiah build with the girls on the really cold snow days. I couldn't get Ruth to turn around. Oh well.