Valentine's Day Heart Attack

Valentine's Day is my second favorite holiday (behind Christmas). I don't buy that it's a Hallmark scam. Of course we should love every day, but I am in favor of a day especially devoted to celebrating love. One of our traditions is to do a family "heart attack". We did this as our Family Home Evening activity this past Monday. I cut tons of hearts from red paper and we each wrote things that we love about each other. My favorite part is when we go around and read them out loud. I get so choked up hearing the things that we love about each other.

Here are a few I want to remember:

Then, we tape them all over the walls so we can see all that love whenever we come into the house or come downstairs. It's amazing how good it feels!

On Valentine's Day morning, I had a little gift bag for each of the boys. (I'd mailed packages to Lyndsay and Dylan so they could share the fun as well.)

Usually I make a pink breakfast, but this was our Field Trip day, so the boys brought their new games to the car and off we went to the mountains!

Valentine's Day

 roses from Adam

My second favorite holiday! Of course I try to show my love every day, but I really enjoy a chance to amp it up a bit just for fun. If I were to use my romantic life as a barometer, Valentine's Days most of my life would be an utter disappointment, but fortunately, there are so many people to love, and I am an optimist. 

I love to find creative Valentine ideas for the kids' classrooms. This year I only had Conor's class to prepare for, and loved this idea I found on Pinterest. 

We set it up factory style. Adam cut the slits in the tags, I slid the rulers through, and Conor affixed the stickers.

Cute!

I prepared little gift bags for my kids at home (and mailed one to Dylan). I chose special cards for each of them and wrote my love letter to them inside. Unfortunately, I had to work the night before Valentine's, so I didn't get home in time to make them the traditional pink breakfast, but I left their gift bags for them to find.

Valentine carnage.

The sweet card Conor made for me this year. I love it so much.

And though I should have been sleeping, I couldn't help but bake sugar cookies with the kids after school. (And now I can't stop eating them!)

One of the best Valentine treats a mom could ask for! Lyndsay drove home for the long weekend.

Aiden wanted to do something fun for one of his friends for Valentine's Day. She loves elephants, so we went in search of a cute stuffed friend. This guy fit the bill. We mailed him off with a card.

And she sent a card to him! Boy, did she!

A day full of sweetness.  For that, I am grateful.

Valentine's Day

Blogger is being a pain today. It took me an hour to get these pictures uploaded, so I'm quitting and will just post what I have here before Valentine's Day is over! I do love this holiday, second only to Christmas. Even if it's not filled with romance, I love a day dedicated to love.

Of course, we had to do the Valentine workshop and make a little something for friends. Conor chose this Caped Cute-Sader from this month's Family Fun magazine. (Thank you, FF!)

But let me just say that I never want to cut out another teeny-tiny mask again.

It's near impossible to get a normal picture of Conor. So, we're going with complete silliness. What a pill he is in front of a camera!

Lyndsay found an owl idea on Family Fun's website, so she made up a batch of those for friends at school. Kind of fitting for a senior to give too, "I'll Owl-ways be your friend."

Here was our Valentine's breakfast this morning: Pink waffles with strawberries and whipped cream. And late last night I wrote a love note to each of the kids for them to read with breakfast. It was a teary night, you can imagine, especially as I wrote Lyndsay's. Next Valentine's Day, we'll be sending her a care package at college.

Here we are out of order. Sorry about that. Again, I was having such a time with Blogger this morning. But yesterday I made this cake for our Family Home Evening treat. A throw-back to the cakes my mom used to make. It's red velvet with cream cheese frosting.

We had a nice roasted chicken and roasted potatoes dinner and then for our activity, we did a family Heart Attack. The only good kind of heart attack! We wrote things that we love about each other on paper hearts, read them out loud to each other, and then taped them up all over the living room. It feels really fun with all the love on the walls.

Some of the things the kids wrote are pretty cute, too.

Then we cut into the cake. My sweet Valentines!

Happy Valentine's Day to you! Love somebody!