Celebrating Valentine's Day

 John is getting extra fun with the holiday lights.

Jr high Valentine's Dance.

Valentine's Fun

Nightly hearts for each kid with things we love about them.

preschool Valentine exchange at the park

Valentine's candy minute-to-win-it games.

Homemade Valentine's exchange boxes. 

Cookie decorating.

I made a felt ball/felt heart garland.

Valentine's Day Fun

Some Valentine's Day fun

I volunteered for Dalt's class party and he was cool enough to wear a pink shirt and pose for a selfie with mom.

Mama's Littlest Valentine

Valentine's Day Show

The neighborhood kids put on an elaborate Valentine's Day show.

Valentine's Love from Mom and Dad

On January 31st, John and I cut out 14 hearts for each kid and I put one up for each of them, each night until Valentine's Day.  We wrote different things we love about each kid, and they all got their own color. (Maggie purple, Sienna pink, Dalton blue, Arthur orange)

On the last day, Sienna asked me who was putting the hearts on the door and I told her "mom and dad!" It's so nice to have a holiday where we don't have to lie about where gifts are coming from.

Homemade Pok-e-moji Valentines

Valentine's Day Celebrations! 

Sienna has been wanting to do a lot of "actibies" lately. This is a fox made out of heart shaped pieces.

Here's her award-winning Valentine's bag.

She went to a party with the ward play group, but I stayed home with sick Arthur. She took it upon herself to help out a little friend who was not having a good time.

Valentine's cakepop!

Maggie's Pokeball bag, and emoji Valentine's Day cards.  She drew a different emoji on each card. A lot of effort put into her homemade valentines this year!

Dalton also made a Pokeball bag and emoji valentines.  He made yellow heart-shaped valentines with heart eyes.

Valentine's Day detritus. 

And our traditional pic while getting John a sandwich from Mustard Cafe.

Be My Kissy Pal

Maggie wanted to make her own Valentines to hand out at school so we made 30 Heart Envelopes.  She put her own sayings on them.

Be Nice

Be a Huggy Guy

Be My Cute Pal

Kiss Me

You Are a Kind Pal

You know, the usual.

Valentine's Day Kids' Crafts

In addition to the heart garland I made, we've done a few Valentine's kids crafts.  If you're looking for more kids' craft ideas for Valentine's Day, be sure to check out all the ones we did last year! You can see all the Valentine Crafts under "Homemade Valentine's Day."

Glitter Playdough

Mini Heart Pizzas

I folded some paper and drew half-hearts and let Maggie cut them out. She's a pro with scissors now.  Then I wrote "I love" and let her write different things she loves with pink marker.  We stuck them on her bedroom door to decorate.

Heart Bag Toppers for Maggie's Heart-a-Saurus Valentines.  She wrote all the names on them herself. (I'm having trouble with Blogger rotating (or unrotating) my photos.  I turned off auto-rotate on my camera and now Blogger is rotating a picture that was taken horizontally! I give up.)

Valentine's Day Crafty Night

My cousin Jill came over this week and we got our Valentine's Day craft on.  Dalton helped.

 Jill made a pleated heart pillow.

 I made these heart cut-out garlands.

Preschool Activities Letters T-V

T was the letter that never ended. We did a paper plate Turtle. I cut a slit in the paper plate to the center, and taped it over itself to make the shell stand up a bit more. The we made a head, tail and feet from construction paper and taped them on.

We also made a Telephone. I cut out 10 squares and Maggie wrote a number on each (1-10, not 0-9). One of the squares went missing and reappeared after being replaced, so on the back is a square with an elephant.

Maggie insisted on making a Tiger. I found this folding tiger craft idea, and just drew my own tiger since we don't have a printer. Here he is eating lunch.

Then, she burst into tears because we hadn't made a Tree. I drew a T shape and gave her a brown crayon to color it in. She drew branches along the bottom of the T then glued her leaves there. I asked why she hadn't put any on the top, then she moved some, and burst into tears again because she needed more leaves for the bottom. So we made more leaves. I feel bad, like I squashed her creativity. I'm trying to give less direction and help in some of the art activities we do.

Letter U is for Umbrella. I made this umbrella from a paper plate. I used half to cut the curved handle. I cut the rainbow arcs ahead of time and had Maggie put them in rainbow order. She wanted her tinfoil rain coming down on the umbrella. If you think about it, that makes sense.

Letter V is for Valentine. We did a lot of Valentine's Day crafts but this V is for Valentine was specifically for preschool. It was one of the best activities we did so far.