Our kids were so excited to celebrate Valentine's Day. They weren't old enough to expect candy and cards, but they knew it was a day about love. They were excited to spread kindness and love to their friends and family! A few weeks ago, we bought felt envelopes at Hobby Lobby to get into the valentines mood. After each kid decorated an envelope with felt hearts, they drew pictures for each other. Every now and then, they would add another drawing inside someone's envelope, so little love surprises would be found. Cute, right?
Once it was finally February, I added a few more decor items around the house. The red heart was only $1, and I painted on the "Hello" and flowers. My original plan was to hang the heart outside, so we sealed it to protect it from rain, but then I changed my mind and placed it on the mantle.
My outside porch wall wasn't draped in mounds of red or pink, but I still liked it bright cheery message. A friend made the chalkboard sign for me last year, and I thought its cheery, yellow presence would brighten up our cloudy post-winter weather. The flowers for the wreath were wrapped in a couple strands of fishing wire to keep the wind from destroying their look. I wanted our outside porch wall to be reayd for Spring, without having to change too much after February 14th.
For the big V-Day itself, we cut out paper hearts and taped them around the family room. Easy-peasy and perfect for our Little Kid Valentine's Day party. The afternoon of February 14th was enjoyed by 20ish kids (ages 0-4) and their awesome mommas. One Dad came to join the fun too! With a houseful of little ones, I figured paper hearts would be the most kid-friendly way to color up the room. Grace drew a bunch of snowmen on her hearts, and Ruby scribbled. The paper hearts did their job and lovied-up the room.
Can you tell we're remodeling? There's always a project happening in this house!
A simple "love" sing on the chalkboard and some roses completed my decorating.
For Valentine's Day morning, I arranged all their felt envelopes around their chairs, filled with chocolate goodies. I added the yellow roses, but my amazing husband added the pink roses as a surprise for our daughters. The story goes like this:
Yesterday in the car, Grace told me she wanted flowers from Daddy. Then, before bedtime I casually mentioned it to Johnny, mostly to describe how much she loved her dad. When I came into the kitchen the next morning to start a special Valentine's Day breakfast, Johnny was arranging roses in vases for all his girls.
He woke up an hour early and drove through the rain to honor Grace's request.
I'm so grateful to have a husband who loves us all so much.
You can see his pink roses on the table in our breakfast picture. I'm pretty sure chocolate was 95% of their breakfast intake. Lunch was a spattering of cookies and brownies and party candy. Dinner was heart-shaped pizza and salad, but the kids didn't eat too much since they pounded suckers before Dad came home from work.
The whole day was a rush of treats and friends and flowers and hugs and "I love yous." Valentine's Day with four kids might not be super romantic or glitzy, especially on a Tuesday, but I definitely felt loved. So life is good!
Labels: Crafts, Happy Tidbits
