Ahoy! Pirate Talking Fun

Yo ho landlubbers! We celebrated Talk Like a Pirate Day yesterday, we did. My salty dog husband and I woke up our little bilge rats with pirate talk, threatening a walk off the plank if they didn't get moving out of bed. I'm pretty sure they just thought we'd lost our minds until we explained the special occasion.

To celebrate the day, I sent them to school with pirate-themed lunches. I found inspiration for the lunches at BentoLunch.net, along with a few other sites. Here's how my boxes turned out -- yes, go ahead and compare the one on BentoLunch.net. In my head, these things always seem like they will work out perfectly, but the reality never turns out quite as well. The good thing about my boys is that they are really just as excited about my imperfect version. Then again, they don't usually see the inspiration picture or they might be harsher critics.

I used a sandwich round for their turkey and cheese sandwiches, added a zucchini eye patch, blueberry eye, and strawberry mouth and nose. I even managed to find one of my food markers to draw the strap for the eye patch and add a mustache. The toothpick flags were left over from a pirate birthday party, and of course, there was Pirate's Booty. They loved their lunches and my little guy wanted to make sure I had taken a photo of his lunch before he took it to school. When I picked them up, they were excited to tell me how they had showed their sandwiches to their friends. I love finding little ways to make them happy during the day, even when I'm not there with them.

For bedtime, we read Pirates Don't Take Baths, by John Segal and Let the Good Times Roll with Pirate Pete and Pirate Joe, by A.E. Cannon.

What is this holiday? Check out the Talk Like a Pirate Day website to learn more about this silly celebration, and there's even a page for Junior Pirates.

I love these random celebrations as a way to add a little fun into the week -- like Dr. Seuss's birthday in March and Mickey Mouse day in November -- and I'm always on the look out for new occasions. Do you know any silly holidays? I'd love to hear how you celebrate them.

Love Notes

In this past week leading up to Valentine's Day, our family has been writing little "I love..." notes. Inspired by this Family Gratitude Project from Becky Higgins, we have been working on our own Family LOVE project.

Each evening when the boys are ready for bed, we have taken turns writing in something that we love. In addition to the LOVE in the middle, the lower left corner has our names and the year. I printed it at home and trimmed it to 8.5x11. I really should have used a larger piece of cardstock, but I did not expect that my little 4-year-old was going to want to write ALL his own notes, even the very long "I love blueberry pancakes."

Some things I loved about this project:

• My 4-year-old's determination to write his own notes and his pride in knowing how to spell "love."
• My 6-year-old's look of happiness when I read the notes to him last night. I think it made him feel special to hear the little things my husband and I had written down.
• That we found a way to add little extra sweetness to a holiday that has little in the way of traditions other than cards and candy.

I can't wait to finish it and hang it, and I definitely plan to do it again next year, though on a bigger piece of paper!

Wishing you a sweet Valentine's Day!