Valentine's Day Plans

Valentine's Day is right around the corner, literally in just a couple of hours it'll be time to celebrate all those we love and cherish.  We're always a little late in decorating - like today we threw open the windows, let in all the fresh air we could handle, and cleaned like crazy until all the flat surfaces were dust free and begging for red and pink and glitter.

We even unearthed these artistic beauties.  Inspired by a similar project at Art Projects for Kids, Peter and I glued popsicle sticks together, Maria and Peter painted them and then they got buried under piles of stuff.  Today they were found and proudly displayed for Valentine's Day.

We have a number of activities that'll take us away from home, but we'll still celebrate love.

Books we'll read

Saint Valentine

A Child's Calendar

I Love You, Dear Dragon

The Kissing Hand

It's actually the day after St. Valentine's Day.  The house is still mostly clean from our Monday crazy cleaning.  Bellies are full of Tootsie Pops.  Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Disney Princesses valentines are strewn about.  The Valentine m&m cookies are gone.  Love was indeed in the air.

I'm wishing you all a beautiful week of love.💗

I Just Loved My Family

I know that title is past tense which sounds as if I've loved them and am now done loving them, but it's quite the contrary.  Emily and Nick have boating safety tonight which means my Valentine, who sanded all day never even stopping for a lunch break or any break for that matter, drove the buckets of water over to the horses while the teenage daughter babysat for money, never got a shower, sucked down only one bowl of Hug and Kiss soup instead of his normal 2-3, didn't have time for crackers or Valentine cut-outs (another favorite), kept his promise to take all kids along for the ride to boating safety class and Fleet Farm.  I wanted to cut fabric and sew fabric and snip threads and iron seams, but instead I loved my family.  They scurried out the door leaving quite a mess behind at the supper table and in the porch and on the living room floor and anywhere messes can accrue.  It would've been so easy to mumble under my breath something about having to do everyone's jobs and not getting to do my thing, but it's Valentine's day so I did all the supper time jobs.  I'm not complaining!  I thought about the traditional wedding scripture reading  1 Corinthians 13: 4-7, which Amber read to us this morning before digging into the pancake breakfast Warren made for us. 

Love is patient, love is kind.  It is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing, but rejoices with truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Clearing the table, loading the dishwasher, washing the leftover dishes, straightening the boots, putting away stray hats and mittens, placing the pillows on the couch just so and neatening the baby toddler toy area perfectly is an act of love for my family.  And I still have an hour and a half for sewing.  Life is good.

Geometric Heart Puzzle

I have this desire to decorate for Valentine's Day this year.  Every year I want to I just don't have any decorations other than a quilted wall banner I made last year.  So after yesterday's doily prints my mind started thinking of other Valentine projects we could make simply and with very few supplies.  This idea came from my liking to doodle geometric shapes and patterns.  First I cut a large heart from freezer paper.  Any paper will work; it just depends on what size you want yours.  Then I cut the heart apart into 6 random pieces.

Using permanent Bic markers we all grabbed a piece and started doodling geometric shapes, patterns, really anything.

Here are all the finished pieces.  Next we laid them on the floor and organized them back into a heart which was no easy task.  I didn't pay any attention when cutting it apart so I didn't remember how to put it back together.  I know, it sounds foolish considering there were only 6 pieces, but we fiddled for almost 5 minutes before getting it right.

I taped 4 sheets of pink typing paper together and we taped on the pieces.  That's it.  Now it hangs on our front door offering it bit of bright and cheery opposition to the cold and cloudy February days that are ahead.

Valentine Doily Art

Thanks to The Artful Parent for this fun doily art.  I wasn't interested in making t-shirts, but had these stretched canvas frames on hand.  Last week I picked up two packs of paper heart doilies "just in case" for any Valentine inspired artwork.

First we painted the doily with craft paint using a flat paintbrush.  We placed it paint side down on the canvas, covered with a sheet of clean paper and rubbed on it to help transfer as much paint as possible.  Sam had the idea of sprinkling glitter on the wet paint.  Once dry (it only took a few minutes) we each traced the heart we made using metallic sharpies and wrote conversation heart phrases in the white space.  Hung it on the wall and Voila! we just decorated for Valentine's Day.

Happy Valentine's Day

I'm eating dark chocolate, but only for the heart healthy antioxidants.

Wishing you a very sweet day.

All Things Love and Hearts

We've been focusing on Valentine's Day this week. Here are a few pics of what we've done besides reading a ton of books and playing outside. Temps as high as 44 today. Nice for getting outside, but they come in just sopping wet and as far as sanding goes...let's just say it's not going. It's just too warm today. For my husband's sake I hope temps drop slightly for the rest of the week.

This art project came from Art Projects for Kids. I like this site and find lots of inspiring art ideas. The kids browse the site as well looking for art ideas.

I just love the way Little J is holding onto Lou - such safety found in his big sister's arms.

These peanut butter bon-bons are a favorite. And nothing says love like a little chocolate. The recipe is so simple: 2 cups each of powdered sugar, graham cracker crumbs and peanut butter, 1/4 c. of softened butter. Combine, roll in balls, chill or freeze. Dip in melted chocolate chips with a little parafin for shine. I use about 2 cups chips which doesn't cover all the bon-bons, but I have a few who like them uncoated. We keep them in the freezer because they are just so good frozen. Mmmm.

I love her eyes.
Grace took these pictures of the Redpolls. What a thrill it was to finally identify these birds correctly. Note the little cap of red and yellow beak. I'm sure they've been around other years, but I've never looked close enough. I think I let them pass as a drab finch other years. Read about them in this book, a favorite of mine. They appear to be female, but I have seen males as well. They have an extra patch of red on their chin.

Today we spent time working through the heart unit from this book, which I've had for a while and this week it seemed fitting to study the heart. After chemistry, which is on hold this week, we'll jump into more human body studies.

How will you be celebrating Valentine's Day?