images by Dave K Cooper

This Valentine’s Day go crazy with a family dance party. Move the coffee table, clear the living room, and get on down to funky town. I know, I can’t believe I just wrote that line either.

Why a dance party? Why not. We put together three simple steps to throwing the ultimate* family dance party.

*use of the word ultimate may be subjective

1. Keep decorations simple. Honestly, you could probably skip decorations all together. All you really need is an open space. But since we wanted to make it festive, we chose two inexpensive decorations to hang from the ceiling—pompoms and hearts.

My kids loved the heart project. In fact, and I’m not even lying when I say this, my daughter said, “This was a lot of fun. And it’s all thanks to Martha Stewart.” I don’t know if I’ve had a prouder moment. *tear*

2. Leave behind any self-consciousness you have about your dance moves—Your kids don’t care if you look like Elaine when you dance. There’s something pretty special that happens when we bust a move together—it frees us up. I think, and I fully acknowledge I may be a tad crazy here, but allowing ourselves to be ridiculous at times is life skill.

3. Play the right tunes. I’m a terrible DJ. I’ve never been good at mix tapes. So I called on some friends to help. I asked them what they’d put on a Valentine’s mix tape for their families. Here’s what they said…

Caroline Smalley | Push the Envenlope

The Smalleys definitely know a thing or two about music. Caroline is an accomplished artist and uses music as inspiration in her work. Her husband Dave is a writer who also just happens to be a punk rocker.

“The Fam Jam” Our family’s #1 song is: Don’t Go Breakin’ My Heart by Elton John & KiKi Dee
September – Earth Wind and Fire
Somewhere Only We Know – Keane
This Is How We Do It – Montell Jordan
Rainbow Connection – Rivers Cuomo & Hailey Williams
Hear You Me – Jimmy Eat World

PS. Caroline designed some awesome music inspired Valentines for you! Just click on the picture below to download and print. How cool is she?! Bet you didn’t realize this was a post with a super awesome bonus in it did you?

Josh Solar | Happy Family Movement

Josh and his wife Jenny true music lovers. Once, I put a call out on twitter for music suggestions to cheer me up on a rainy day, and within seconds Josh had a whole play list for me. I’m pretty sure Josh and Jenny host regular dance parties in their home. They’re totally the type of lovable-crazy people who’d do that sort of thing so I knew they’d have no trouble coming up with a mix.

Keb’ Mo’ – Life is Beautiful
Rabbit! – Life is Sweet
Tim Myers – The Lucky Ones
Emilie Mover – A You’re Adorable
Kyle Andrews – You Always Make Me Smile
Brett Dennen – Blessed

Aliza Worthington | The Worthington Post

Aliza and my friendship was sealed on the dance floor during a highly amusing reenactment of Thriller. The rest, as they say, is history.

Our House – CSNY
Rainbow Connection – Kermit the Frog
Octopus’ Garden – the Beatles
Diamond Road – Sheryl Crow

Why yes, I *am* totally and completely ridiculous.

Carla Molina Martins | All of Me Now

Carla and her girls, ages 2 and 4, love soundtracks. So she put together a special mix of her favorites for Valentine’s Day.

Life’s a Happy Song – The Muppets soundtrack (track #3)
The Sweetest Gift – Sade (holy tear jerker)
Everybody – Ingrid Michaelson (Ramona and Beezus soundtrack)
Hakuna Matata – Zimba The Lion King Soundtrack (track 4)

Now you have everything you need for a proper dance party. Even a bit extra—print out the images Caroline made for you and use them for invites to your dance party.

So people, this Valentine’s Day, get out there and DANCE!

Happy Valentine’s Day Everyone
xo

Ah well, better late than never, right? Two years ago, *cough*last week*cough*, I launched this site. It’s grown and changed so much since then. Saying I’m fortunate to have this outlet and you here with me doesn’t begin to express my feelings of gratitude.

From the bottom of my heart, thank you to everyone who’s help make this site possible—those who have contributed their words and art, friends who cheered me on, my kids and husband who make this whole thing possible, and everyone who stops by to see what’s going on—I couldn’t have done it without you.

Hugs and high fives all around!

This weekend we joined the masses and purchased an iPad. I immediately loaded it with things like Kinfolk Magazine and my friend Joyce’s app, PrestoBingo Shapes. I have to say, I can see why people rave about those little devices. They’re pretty dang spectacular.

Of course, in my quest to balance the order of the universe and all, we did low tech stuff too. There was a disappointing 3D drawing activity which didn’t look 3D at all (at least the glasses were fun) and I started making the kids Valentine’s Day gifts. This year I’m attempting friendship bracelets.

Can I just say, I’d forgotten how long friendship bracelets take and how much attention is required to make just one?! It’s become this whole zen exercise thing. At my current knotting/attention rate, I estimate they’ll be finished by March of next year.

Kid 1: Oh yeah! Boo-pow!
Kid 2: Uh, why boo-pow?
Kid 1: Because I’m not allowed to say boo-yah.

Scene from last weekend—a completely gratuitous shot of someone reading our paper.

Dave and I have a long standing Friday morning ritual. After we get the kids on the bus, he goes into the kitchen and fixes us breakfast (greek yogurt topped with blueberries, almonds and honey). I pour us coffee. Then we plop ourselves down on the couch, cue up Thursday night’s episode of Colbert on Tivo and hit play.

I’m sure we look quite the sight—us two, sitting side by side on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, laughing and eating yogurt. I don’t mean to be all sickeningly sweet, but I think it’s fair to say, I’m a lucky woman. I really love that yogurt.

Have a great weekend everyone!

I love Andrea

I know! I can’t believe it’s all paper either

I need to get myself invited to a costume party like this

Valentine’s Day cards with heart

I once had a guy come up to me saying the same thing. Seriously.

A great new project by two extraordinary women: Finding the lovely

Today, I found myself looking through photos from this past summer. It’s amazing to me what happens in such a short amount of time. Over the past month or so, my daughter has experienced growing pains. I mean this quite literally. Her legs are lengthening out and they ache.

I remember going through the same thing as a kid. I’d wake up in the middle of the night, walk into my parent’s bedroom and ask my mom to rub my calves. In the span of months, I went from being the smallest kid in my class to average. I guess it’s genetic.

My daughter has always seemed wiser than her years. Dave and I used to joke about it. I’d try to explain it to others, but I was never quite able to articulate it. When she was about two, we took a trip to Jamaica. The women there told me, “be careful, this one has an old soul.” I knew exactly what they meant.

She’s struggled a bit this year with the normal peer stuff that happens. I’ve shared with her my stories from growing up. And I’ve tried to counsel her best I can. The other day I caught myself. My ‘counseling’ was hurting more than helping.

“I’m sorry. I’m going on too much aren’t I?”
“Yeah.”
“Understood. Let me just say one more thing. I trust you to handle it the best way you see fit.”
“Thank you,” she said, then smiled.

This morning I heard the shower running. My daughter had gotten up, showered, dressed, fed the cat and fixed herself breakfast. I walked down to see her sitting at the table eating a bowl of cereal. Next thing I know, she’ll be off to college.

*sniff*

My son has blossomed since the summer as well. The other day, I took him and his sister on a walk around the neighborhood in their search for kids to play with. As we walked along, he crafted a story.

“I know what we should do! We should make a story about the Robots using this walk. So the Robot is looking for some friends to play with. He knocks on the doors and no one answers. Then he gives up and goes back home and orders a Robot friend to play with him. But here’s the funny part, a neighborhood friend comes and knocks on his door and he doesn’t answer it because he’s too busy playing with the Robot he got.”

“Yeah. So can we do it? Can we make the story?”

He got his first report card today. In the comments section, his teacher wrote, “He is an ‘Out of the Box’ type thinker.”

That, he is.

Tease me if you must, but I’m going to come right out and say it—I’m a sucker for hearts and Valentine’s Day. I’m also a sucker for making things. In an effort to combine my loves, and because I was inspired by Ali Henrie’s awesome tutorial + Liz’s freezer paper love, today I made my own V-day shirt.

It took me about 40 minutes from start to finish. Thirty of those minutes was spent watching paint dry. Ooh! Exciting!

For this project you'll need: a shirt, freezer paper, scissors, fabric paint, a small foam brush and an iron

Step 1: Cut a heart out of the freezer paper. Lay paper (waxy side down) on shirt and press with an iron. It'll stick to the shirt.

Apply textile paint using a foam brush. I found a dabbing technique worked better than a brushing one.

Step 4. Allow paint to dry for 30 minutes or according to manufacturer's instructions. Peel away paper. Turn the shirt inside out, iron it (to set the paint) and...

You got yourself a heart shirt

I’ll be honest, when I got a note home at the beginning of the year that my first grader would have monthly book reports, I couldn’t fathom how a kid who was still reversing b and d could pull it off.

Thankfully, his teacher is far wiser, and has more vision than me. She has the kids doing non-traditional book reports. One month the kids made character masks, another it was puppets. Last month kids were asked to make a book sandwich (pictured above).

Have your kids done “book reports” yet? What do you think about non-traditional book reports. They seem pretty fun, yeah?

Bread – Title and Author | Cheese – Picture of the Main Character | Meat – What the story was about (It’s a book about a boy who does bad things. His mother still loves him) | Last Slice of Bread – Student’s name