Valentine's Day

We tried to make Valentine's Day really fun this year. This was our first big holiday with the kids and so we wanted it to be special. Mack and I are not huge Valentine's Day people but we usually try to get each other a card and Mack gets me flowers...always. This year I got chocolate covered strawberries...YUMMY!

So for breakfast we had toast and honey shaped like hearts. The kids love toast and honey and I don't do it that often so it was a real treat. I also put red food coloring in their milk so that they had 'pink milk'. I was too cheap to buy strawberry syrup.
After breakfast we did a scavenger hunt so the kids could find their Valentine's goodies. I hid heart shape clues in some places I knew they could find.
Under the kitchen table...

In the bathtub.... (this was a little tricky since we have two tubs. Reese looked in both & couldn't find it. But Jessenia was on top of it.)

The goodies were hidden in the laundry room. Look at that face!

They got a pretty good haul between their parents and grandparents. We have never given them candy before (Mack's parents brought them some once) and so I wasn't sure what we were getting ourselves into. I had to pace them. They would have had it all consumed in moments if they didn't need us to open the wrappers. We tried to get them some non-candy items: goldfish, fruit snacks, Sesame Street bags, valentine's to color, etc. (P.S. Love the dollar spot at Target)

They were of course most excited about the candy. Look at Reese trying to get those Twix open as fast as he can!

Jessenia loves that Elmo bag. She carries it around and has even made up a song about it that she sings over and over and over and over and over.

Brisbane liked his goodies too. He was perfectly happy to eat his paper bag. Mom and Dad were grateful for the candy that Grandma and Grandpa sent for {clears throat} Brisbane.

This is what really tired parents look like who stayed up late studying for Medical School and decorating the kitchen and living room.

During Brisbane's nap time, the other kids and I made mosaic owls with stickers. I thought the kids would love it because they are obsessed with stickers. They really liked it but the stickers were a little hard for them. They lost a lot of them and so we have two incomplete owls, which are adorable. I also found several in Brisbane's mouth.

Then in the afternoon we did a colored heart sort. I cut out tons of construction paper hearts and glued different colors into a muffin tin. The kids had to sort the hearts into the muffin tin based on color. It held their attention for a little while.

We got this activity out a couple days later and they had a lot more fun the second time. Totally worth cutting out all those hearts!

We had heart shaped sandwiches for lunch (nothing too exciting).

Then for dinner we had normal non-heart shaped food, but we had birthday cake! February 14th is Arizona's birthday and this year our dear old state happened to be turning 100. So we had birthday cake (red velvet) with hearts on it. Not my best work but Mack wasn't home all day and we were rushed.

We sang Happy Birthday and enjoyed some yummy cake!

It was a fun first holiday with lots of love. The best part about the day was that we did not have any major meltdowns or tantrums. In fact my two year old made it the whole day without a time out (that does NOT happen).

I also learned that on Valentine's Day kids get to eat a lot of heart shaped food and parents get to eat a lot of the edge (or leftover) from the food getting cut into a heart. Yummy Yummy!