How Sweet It Is To Be Loved By You

It's February!! And that means it is the month of loooove and of probably one of the most controversial holidays ever...Valentine's Day!

Some people despise this holiday, claiming it's only purpose for existence is for greeting card companies to make some extra mula.

And while that may be so, there are those who love this holiday and embrace the chance to shower those they care for with extra affection.  

I happen to fall into the latter group.

My love for this holiday has grown over the years and here's why:

1. My mom always made this time of year super special and always had little thoughtful gifts, cards, and treats waiting for us.  She also always made her homemade red velvet heart-shaped cake for after dinner dessert.  She took the time to make us feel extra loved and special.  
2. It comes at a time were I'm trying unsuccessfully to wind down from all the holiday hubbub from the previous couple months (except January, January is just kinna lame and boring) and so I JUMP at the chance to get to celebrate something and steer all my leftover holiday energies.
3. There are SO many fun things you can do with hearts and pink and chocolate!!! 

Last year I hosted a Valentine's Day Party for some friends, and, since I didn't have this blog up and going yet, I will share it with you now.

This was the food table!
The cucumbers and carrots were cut like hearts,
don't do this, just don't...
takes way too much time than it's worth, trust me! 

The Treats!!
The champagne glasses (from DollarTree!)
are filled with M&Ms with a cupcake on top.
And there are heart-shaped jigglers, pink lemonade,
and chocolate covered pretzel rods.
Selah got to help with most of it. 

The Crafts!
Lots of paper, ink pads, stamps, stickers, and markers!

This was the sample Selah made.
I cut up a bunch of tissue paper and then printed off
these hearts onto white card stock and wrote "I love you to PIECES!".
Guests could glue the tissue paper in the middle of the heart
and give as a gift to dad or grandma or whoever.

These are bookmarks.
They say, "THUMBody loves you!"
and you can put tiny thumbs into ink pads,
and press them on the paper.
If you put two thumbprints together you can
make a heart :)

There ya go!
In case you plan to throw a little shindig this year, hopefully these are some helpful and fun ideas.  I can't claim any of them as my own, pretty sure I found them all on Pinterest somewhere...

This year I'm not hosting a party, BUT, I do have some fun ideas planned for the coming weeks.

Yesterday we made some heart decorations, and, the best part, it is MESS FREE and the tiniest of hands can do this!! 

Cut paper hearts out of card stock,
preferably, but construction paper works too.
Tape them to the inside of a tub or bucket
or anything that will close up tightly. 

Squeeze in some paint (sadly, we didn't have much pink :/)
You really only need maybe three or four blobs, I went a little
overboard and the hearts were a little soggy.

Throw in some random toys you have laying about, anything
plastic, solid, easy to clean, with some fun shapes to them.
(Small, plastic balls, play food, blocks, rattles, etc.)

Put the lid on tight and let the kids go to town
shaking it all around, maybe put on
some fun music to dance to while you do this part.

Open the lid and take out the toys, but leave
the hearts in there to dry.

Ta-Da!! Then you can display how you wish,
on your mantel, like we did last year...

Or, you can put them on your wall...

like I did this year, as part of our art wall display area,
or anywhere you like really.

We recently had friends over and I covered my table in paper (you know, that paper on a roll made for easels?) and gave the kids a bowl of red paint and toilet paper rolls bent to look like a heart and let them go to town...the toilet paper rolls weren't as durable as I had hoped so I brought out the heart-shaped cookie cutters we have and that worked much better.  But, if all you have on hand are the toilet paper rolls, they work too! Here is where I found the idea and the explanation of how to get it to look like a heart. 

We played with/ate heart shaped frozen strawberry juice. I did something similar with plain ice and food coloring but it stained so badly, so the juice worked much better...didn't stain, and, delicious! 

I also printed off some Bible verses focused on love (onto hearts, of course!) that I found here, that we will try to memorize throughout the month.

I also plan to paint heart-shaped sugar cookies when another friend comes for a play date this week.  I found this idea here during Christmas time but didn't get around to it.  The paint is just evaporated milk and food coloring and you paint it on before you bake the cookies.  Really looking forward to doing this one, should be fun, and yummy!! 

For family/friends/teacher/anybody gifts I am making these magnets, 

I may be giving the surprise away here,
but that's ok, surprise!! You may, or may not,
be getting these in the near future :)

I've tried making these before, but failed miserably.  Learn from my mistakes, and I'll show you what to do and what NOT to do!   

First, you'll need scrapbook paper (particularly ones that have small patterns printed on them or just plain, solid colors because the paper with big prints that are spread out won't work) and some of those clear stones you can find at DollarTree.  You might also want stickers if you want to add a letter sticker to the paper or whatever you want really.

Then, trace the stone onto the paper.  You want to trace each stone individually (instead of using one stone to trace a bunch of circles) because they have slightly different shapes.  I would trace one stone, cut a square around it, then set the paper and stone pair aside together until I was ready to cut them all out at once.  

After you have them all cut out and matched up, you can start on the modge podge.  The key is to put modge podge on the stone first, then put the paper on the stone, let the modge podge dry completely, then put modge podge on the paper.  

Once everything is dry and you have a nice glossy finish on the paper, you can stick on the magnet, and you're done! The first time I used a magnet that was way too weak, then I used a magnet that was way too strong, so I finally found a happy medium, at WalMart for $1.28, and looks like this:

     

Also on the agenda for this month is to make some Valentine cards and treats to take to one of our local assistant living homes we've visited a couple times previously and chat with the residents a bit...they sure love having cute, energetic kids around! 

I am also in the process of making Selah an activity to work on reading.  I printed off hearts that I found here, and cut them in half.  I chose five words (hat, cap, dog, cup, and tree), then did two different activities with them.

I wrote out the word on one side and taped on the
matching picture on the other side.

I also did letter boxes on one side,
where the size of the box matches the size of the
letters that make up the word. 
(I'm sure there's an actually term for this, 
but I'm not sure what it is at the moment)

I've read/heard that learning the shape of a word is extremely beneficial in learning to read (I actually have a degree in teaching, and should know all the ins and outs about this, but since I haven't ever used said degree yet, this is the best I can do).  The idea behind it is that very few words actually sound how they are spelled, take "are" for example or "said", and therefore the sound-it-out method doesn't always work.  So learning the shape of the word can be helpful in memorizing those words that don't quite follow the rules.

Well, I think that about wraps it up!!  Thanks for reading!! 

Happy Valentine's Month, enjoy loving on all those special people in your life!!