Back to the birthday

Sorry for the short absence here. I went away for a scrapbooking retreat last weekend. Between the focused preparations packing and the recovery upon returning home, this has slid to the back burner.

I wanted to catch up on the rest of the crazy Valentine's/birthday weekend. So in blogland here, we will be talking about Saturday, February 14.

Several activities took place here that morning. First, instead of just giving the girls their Valentine's present, I had made them a pseudo treasure hunt. They began with a note explaining they were starting a journey and an item from the house. They had to take that item to where it belonged in the house, where they found a puzzle piece and another 'mislocated' item.

Overall there were five things to be relocated and five puzzle pieces found. The last one had a note telling them it was time to put the puzzle together.

I had made a large heart and written a word on it as their final clue, then cut it for their puzzle pieces.

This was so much more fun that wrapping a present! I had them running all over the house and they had a blast. When they put the puzzle together, they looked at each other and went "the dryer?".

Off to the dryer they headed, and proceeded to look at it for a few seconds like 'Now what?'. Rachel was the one to get the idea to open it, where they found their gift.

I'm already thinking this could be a really fun tradition that I could make unique every year.

After the treasure hunt was complete, we decorated the cookies we baked the day before. Sarah really enjoyed the sprinkling aspect.

We headed out for an honorary birthday/Valentine lunch and then I proceeded to decorate the Elmo birthday cake that afternoon. (We officially gathered with our siblings on Sunday to celebrate.)

I have never attempted this one before, and was a little leery of it, but it turned out better than I thought it would.

The Barbie cake I made last August for Rachel was faster, it had a much smaller surface area!