Happy Valentine’s Day!

Since I totally decided to slack off this year & have no original Valentine ideas to share, I thought I would share some links from the past few years.

This is a quick synopsis of how we usually spend Valentine’s Day.



Here are the Valentine’s we made one year.



Mark & I celebrated Valentine's Day last weekend, since our church hosted a free babysitting night, but we will celebrate with the kids tonight.  I always like to get the kids a little gift for Valentine’s day too, so this year, Zeke is getting a video game (for our original X-Box, so it’s a cheap one!), Elie is getting the Frozen soundtrack, & Evie is getting some stickers & a little teddy bear.  Of course, we’ll be eating dinner by candle light & eating our heart shaped jello jigglers too!

So, what do you do for Valentine’s Day?   You can find more great ideas on my "Be My Valentine?" pinterest board!

Valentine's Day

I know Valentine's Day is over with, but I thought I would share some of the fun we had celebrating our love for each other!

Mark & I don't usually celebrate Valentine's Day as a couple...since having kids, it has become a fun little family holiday.  My husband usually humors me & goes along with my ideas, but doesn't take part in the planning or preparation, so imagine my surprise when I came downstairs to this:

Some how, he had managed to sneak out of the house & pick up heart-shaped donuts, a rose for me, the baby (the reason the two roses are surrounded with Baby's Breath!) & Eliana, & a toy car for Zeke. Although, it may seem like a small gesture to some of you, this made the kids & I feel so special!

{Chocolate Cream Filled Goodness}

You might think a five-year-old would have no interest in flowers, but our daughter loves hers!  Here she is dancing with it:

Okay, so I guess it's a little hard to tell she is dancing with it in this picture!  She has also given her flower a sticker from the grocery store!  Yesterday, it was wrapped in a blanket & this morning I walked into the family room to find it wearing a hat!

Sadly, the other flowers have taken a hit, but I'm okay with that, since she is enjoying her flower so much!  Oh, & please excuse the messy background!  Just keeping it real!

To make lunch a little more special, I cut the kids' PB&J sandwiches with a heart shaped cookie cutter & included a small jello heart.

I love these Ziploc containers for holding the kids lunches!  Since I usually pack a lunch for my son in the mornings, I have started making Elie's lunch at the same time, even though she eats it at home.  It is a huge time saver & she can easily get it out & start eating if she gets hungry a little early.

Mark was only home for a couple of hours after school, so we did our Valentine hunt before dinner this year.  I hid hearts with words on them around the house.  The kids had to find all the hearts, put them together to figure out the clue, & then go find their Valentine baskets based on the clue.

Since our Valentine's Day was packed with a dentist appointment, parties, & basketball practice, I decided to pick up a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store (yep, it was time for a marathon grocery run too!).  We also had heart-shaped jello jigglers, strawberries, green beans, strawberry milk, & heart-shaped Little Debbie brownies for dessert.  I had seen the idea to use chocolate to write a message around the heart somewhere, so I decided to do that to make it a little more unique!

{Dinner by candle light with my two little sweethearts!}

Not bad for a quick Valentine's meal!

So, do you celebrate this holiday as a couple, or as a family?  Do you have any fun Valentine's Day traditions?  I'd love to hear them!

Gifts for my Sweethearts!

Usually our Valentine's Days are spent celebrating the whole family.  We have fun with meal times by eating a lot of foods that are red or pink & shaped like hearts (pancakes, jello jigglers, sugar cookies, strawberry milk, etc.).  We also eat dinner by candle light & use fancy plates & glasses.  Afterwards, the kids go on some sort of a hunt for Valentine goodies.
This year, I cut out hearts with different words on them.  While the kids are preoccupied, I will hide them around the house.  After dinner, they will have to find all the hearts & de-code the message to find the where-abouts of their Valentine's gifts. 

Here are the gifts they are getting for Valentine's Day this year:

I got all of Zeke's gifts at Dollar Tree... a word search, calculator, yo yo, sweethearts candy, Frog Lays Eggs experiment, & a Growing Pet Flamingo.  (I'm not exactly sure what those last two items are, but I guess we'll find out!)

I got Elie a sun catcher (from Hobby Lobby), bubble bath (from Dollar Tree), sweetheart candy, nail polish, lip gloss, & girlie nails (from Family Dollar).  The Girlie Nails are fake fingernails for little girls.  I thought they were cute for playing dress up & maybe encouraging Elie to stop sucking her thumb!

I put their gifts in these heart-shaped baskets I got from Dollar Tree a few years ago.

So, how do you spend your Valentine's Day? 





Our Valentines

Each year, since the kids have been in school, we have made Valentine's cards for their classmates.  I was planning on showing ones from years past, but apparently, I never took pictures of them!  Oops!

Thanks to Pinterest, I was able to pin a bunch of ideas for Valentine's Day, & here are the cards the kids chose to make for their classes:

Zeke chose to make these Valentine's, which say "Have a TOAD-ally awesome Valentine's Day!".  I made them on the computer, cut them out, & had him sign them & glue on frogs from Dollar Tree.  I saw the idea from Crap I've Made & she actually even has a link to print them, but I wasn't sure if it would print okay on the red paper I had already bought, so I made my own.

Elie chose to use glow bracelets & make these Valentine's that say, "You make my heart glow!".  I found the idea at The Teacher Wife & she also has a cute printable for these!  (I really wish I would have noticed that before I bought the red paper!)  Hers are much cuter than mine!  Anyway, I just made them on the computer, printed them, cut them out, & had Elie sign her name & tape some glow stick bracelets on the back. 



We always give the teachers & bus drivers candy bars wrapped in festive paper.  It's nicer than giving them a kid card, but not as extravagant or expensive as a gift.  (Right now, I am trying NOT to eat the extra candy bar that's sitting on the counter!)

So, what are your kids handing out for Valentine's Day?  Do you buy cards or make them with the kids?  I'd love to hear some more ideas!