v-day 2011 Handmade Valentines/Cards

Trader Joe's Strawberry Fruit Leather

Construction Paper Rectangles, Triangles, Flames, Double Stick Tape

Teacher's Gifts for Valentines Day:

Trader Joe's Truffle Filled Hearts (Delicious and Cheap)

with a Rocket taped to the box.

valentine buttons

1. gather pretzel rings

2. place pretzels on a Silpat or parchment paper lined cookie sheet

3. enlist children to unwrap a bunch of Hershey Kiss Hugs

4. balance a Hershey's Kiss Hug on the center of each pretzel

5. bake @200 degrees for 10 minutes while child salivates

6. while still warm push a M&M into the center of each Kiss

just enough for it to spread out and fill the entire pretzel

7. Place the entire cookie sheet in the refrigerator for

10 minutes until chocolate is firm to the touch

8. Pop off the Silpat and enjoy!

be mine

To help add festive "love" to our decor the boys and I spent a morning making 3-D hearts. We attached them to white yarn, which I tied to the light fixture above our eating table. I was quite surprised that this display stayed up for a week before L decided to climb the table and rip it down string by string. I wasn't upset because it was time to take them down anyway. It was a little claustrophobic in my tiny house to have so many hearts hanging around...just helping mommy out.

The boys' Valentine gifts. (lots and lots of chocolate)

This was the surprise upon wakening Valentines Day morning for the boys. They were thrilled with a giant chocolate trout, a giant Reeses peanut butter heart for N, M&M's for L and some weird bouncing faces with fuzzy hair I picked up at Walgreens for both. My gift was a new digital-baby camcorder that E gave me a few days before Valentine's Day. It's so small and cute compared to my industrial sized camcorder from the 90's that I've been lugging around and collecting years of mini video tapes. (What am I going to to with those?)

The boys' LOVE breakfast.

Ham and pita anyone? (L's dairy/egg free breakfast...notice the leftover pasta from the night before? The slice of ham and flat bread wasn't his favorite breakfast.)

Scrambled Love eggs for N.

love day

Last year's preschool recommended that ONLY "healthy" foods be brought for all classroom parties, so we made these using Whole Food's Market's strawberry-fruit strips. This year N's at a new preschool which doesn't put a lot of pressure to only send "healthy" foods for parties...so by popular vote...we went hog-wild and made his Valentines with full-sized Hershey bars! Yum!...N and I hot glued all the parts together. I also hot glued a drinking straw along the back for additional support of the head and Antennae. I think I enjoyed making them as much as happy-little N! He was involved in all steps and even "stamped" his whole name 22 times! (we made extra for cousins!)

A Valentine's Day mailbox N and I made for his Valentine card collection at preschool.