Valentine's

I love doing Valentine crafts with kids because they can be so easy. Color something with red, purple and pink, cut it into the shape of a heart and voila! you have a Valentine craft. I was excited to do Valentine's with Jack for school this year and started early. I was so proud of Jack and the effort he put in. He laced all 14 hearts that we made. And for each one he chose the color of heart and the color of ribbon and told me who it was for. One once or twice did I try to direct him as to what colors the girls in his class might prefer. I held the heart for him while he laced it and he has such fun doing it. He also cut out, with a little help, the red tags for his school Valentines and he glued them all on the envelopes. On each envelope I wrote his name in dotted lines and then he traced over my dotted lines to write his name. Those are all skills he struggles with, so I was so proud of him for pushing through and finishing all eight. On the Saturday night before Valentine's day I spent my evening making candy rockets and pasting together homemade envelopes to hold our homemade Valentine's. But I loved doing it. On Valentine's Day he took his bag full of Valentine's to school and then after school we drove around town dropping off our other hearts. He had fun ringing the door bells and Si and Haley's houses and handing them their heart. He didn't want me to come to the door at Haley's. It was so cute. 

This paper heart garland turned out super cute. It's hung in a totally inconvenient, but prominent location and Paul's going to make me take it down soon as it's driving him crazy every time he opens the pantry door. But this was made from the little kids finger painting. Those hearts were cut from Logan and George's paintings. We also used their paintings to make Valentine's for grandparents and for George's mommy and daddy.  

And these hearts hang in our kitchen window and look so pretty with the sun shining through them. Jack and Haley made these "crayon shavings melted between wax paper" hearts one afternoon. They had a great time sprinkling crayon shavings all over and watching how the iron melted the wax into pretty puddles of color. We also used some of these hearts in the grandparent's Valentine's.