Our Valentine's Day Extravaganza

Valentine's Day preparations in our house started a few weeks ago.  I knew that I wanted to make valentines from the kids for the grandparents (and great-grandparents) and that it would take some time.  After searching on pinterest for a bit, I found a few options and we went with a heart-tree made with fingerprint leaves.

Here's one of the days we painted - not sure which one.  I painted the tree trunks first and then over about a week, we painted the leaves.  I have a finished valentine picture near the end.  (The kids made one for us too!)

Sunday night I made sugar cookie dough and yesterday the kids helped me make the cookies.  Tabi enjoyed helping to roll out the dough.

So did Ephraim.

Then they both got to cut some cookies out with our collections of heart-shaped cookie cutters.

After they were all baked and cooling, I made the icing.  Each of the kids got three cookies to decorate for themselves.  We took off their shirts so that they didn't get them covered with icing.  Ephraim was very precise.

Tabi kept sticking the whole sprinkle-shaker into the icing and getting it sticky.  She doesn't seem too concerned.

Here's all the cookies we ended up with.  Due to the large number of cookies and the fact that Ed and I are trying to lose weight, I took a number of cookies with to MOPS this morning.

Here are the three that Tabi decorated.

Here are Ephraim's cookies.

Here's a closeup of one of the three-heart cookies.  They were fun to decorate.  I loved using all three icing colors on each.

Loved making some dinky hearts as well!

We started our Valentine's morning with heart-shaped cereal with dried strawberries.  It was very tasty and gobbled them right up! (Ed, unfortunately, had a meeting this morning, so he didn't get to join us.)

My littlest valentine was chilling and looking adorable while we ate breakfast.

Ephraim in the most valentine-y clothes I could find - a red sweatshirt.  Oh well!

Tabi loves my homemade yogurt and gets it all over her face nearly every morning.  Her valentine outfit was hot pink.  Unfortunately she dumped her water in her lap during breakfast, so I had to change her into jeans quickly before we headed to MOPS.

We opted for a regular lunch for us, but we made it all heart-shaped.  The large heart at the top is an apple slice.  The small heart is cheese.  The heart at the bottom should be pretty recognizable - it's peanut butter and jelly.  Awww Man!  I should have included pretzels - they are shaped like hearts!  Maybe next year.

Dinner tonight was pretty ordinary, but we did have cookies for dessert - so that was our Valentine-themed portion.  After dinner, we did Valentine cards.  Ed and I don't do cards for each other, but we did cards for the kids this year.  Here's Ephraim trying to read his.  He opened it up and 'read', "I love you too Ephraim".  This is what he always says.  He wasn't too far off!

Tabi had a rough time getting hers out of the envelope.

Jo was very interested in what hers said too!

Then we listened to some good valentine-y music.  "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and the News and the "Elephant Love Medley" from Moulin Rouge.  I danced with my girls while the boys pretended to play guitar and drums.  It was fun!

We followed this up with bath time (with purple water) and story time (Love You Forever, Clifford's First Valentine's Day, and I Love You Stinky Face).  The kids went to bed relatively easy and we've been relaxing together.

Here's the valentine that the kids made for the grandparents and us.

Here are the kids' valentine cards from us and from Auntie D!  They loved getting mail!

The kids also got a valentine's gift from Granma and Granpa Maanum.  We opened this a few days ago - a "cutting" set from Melissa and Doug.  Couldn't find the tomato, watermelon, or carrot for the picture.  They have been playing with these non-stop since they opened them.  In fact, they have broken the wooden knife already - it actually just came unglued, so I have to fix it.

This is the other part of the gift from Granma and Granpa - it looks awesome!  However, I will have to hide the markers for decorating until they get a bit older.  The rest they should be able to handle!

One of the things that strikes me as so odd about this whole day is that I/we have never really celebrated Valentine's Day.  I guess I used it mostly as a way to have a theme day in the house.  It was fun - the kids enjoyed the anticipation and preparation - they loved painting, mailing the valentines, and baking.  I enjoyed this so much that I think we are going to try to have some sort of theme day each month.  Some will be obvious - like Easter and their three birthdays, but we may have to make up some holidays or celebrate some minor ones.  Oh well - sounds like fun!