Sunday, February 16, 2014

The Day of Love

The hubs and I have never celebrated Valentine's Day with fancy dinners, flowers, or sparkly jewelry. We've always kept it simple and used it as an excuse to eat chocolate covered fruit and candies. Since we've had kids, we involve them on our "love day" (as Max, our oldest, called it). This is how we spent our love day:
The kids were on a sugar high first thing in the morning. I made cinnamon rolls with red frosting for breakfast.
The kid's homemade Valentine's for their grandparents (including chocolate covered marshmallows that they dunked and decorated).
The daycare kids made some last minute Valentine's for their parents: foam hearts, stickers, and fuzzies (I controlled the glue!).

These painted hearts turned out really cool.

This is my girl who really gets into painting. It's not uncommon for her to paint her hands, arms, and belly, but on this day she chose to paint the back of her hair. Never a dull moment.
Elizabeth came up with a new one: painting with diaper cream. She got a hold of the diaper cream and didn't want to let it go. I didn't feel much like dealing with the tantrum that would follow me ripping it away from her....so we comprised by painting with it. When she realized I was letting her play with it, it's crazy how fast she set it down!
Valentine's lunch: heart shaped quesadillas, rice, corn, and oranges.
After lunch, the kids got to decorate cupcakes.
Beautifully decorated! Usually when the kids decorate cupcakes or cookies, I let them spread the frosting on, but on this day, I put the frosting on and let them put the sprinkles on. This actually held their interest longer than having them do both the frosting and sprinkles. You'll be shocked to know that naptime didn't happen.....
To get some of their sugar energy out, we played a game. I numbered cards (foam rectangles from Dollar Tree) 1-10 and had the kids walk number to number while I played music. When the music stopped, they had to stop on a number. Then I pulled a folded card out of the bin. Whomever was standing on the number that I had pulled from the bin got a Valentine's sticker. The kids LOVED this game!


Playing with the Valentine's "snow" (baking soda, water, red glitter, and red food coloring). When the kids were done playing with, I had them put them into the heart cookie cutters and I poured vinegar on them, so we had "fizzy hearts!" The baking soda/vinegar trick never gets old with these kids!

Elizabeth having a Valentine's wrestling match with her oldest brother.
From wrestling to cuddles.
The kids built one big long chain with their glow sticks from Grandma and Grandpa Sheaffer and then created a game using them. Love their creativity and only one broke open!
We made the minis wait until the end of the night to open up their presents from us. We went with a Lego theme this year for their gifts.
Harrison held his candy in his mouth while he opened. There's only 3 days each year (Halloween, Valentine's, and Easter) that I'm cool with sweets and this middle minis takes full advantage!
Elizabeth got a Duplo ice cream set. She promptly built herself an ice cream cone and started licking it, telling us "so yummy. Mmmmm."
The minis wearing their new shirts from Grandma and Grandpa Harmeyer.
As usual, we had a heart shaped pizza for dinner (courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa Harmeyer) and just had a laid back night at home.......complete with a box of chocolates and a glass of champagne after the minis fell into bed from a sugar crash.

I love the kid's excitement on these special days. What do you do for your kids for Valentine's Day??