Valentine's Day

Every year I ask the question -"Make them or buy them this year?"  And every year the answer is the same - "Make them!"  So we begin the hunt online for which valentine each child wants to make.  Next is the list of supplies needed to make said valentines.  Finally, the work begins.  I generally have to go to three or four stores before I have all the supplies, including the candy, and I'm quite sure we spend more on supplies than if we would just buy the things, but they have such a great time making them each year.  Perhaps its because crafts is not my forte and this qualifies as a craft in their eyes!
So, this is the first night they came home from school and I had purchased all the supplies. They got very busy at it!  I did nothing to help Brandon or Anika this year, which was very cool.

And, the finished product.  Brandon made a paper airplane for each classmate and attached pixie sticks.  I think he wrote 'You're plane cool' or 'You soar Valentine' or 'Fly high Valentine'.  Not sure which one he ended up with.  Anika made foam mustaches and lips and attached them to sucker sticks, so when you put the sucker in your mouth it looks like you have either a mustache or huge red lips.  Jessica made aliens for the boys and hearts for the girls.  The aliens said 'there's space in my heart for you' and the hearts had a barrett attached and said 'we click'.  Maria melted crayons into a heart mold and then attached that to construction paper that said 'you color my world'.

Valentine's supper had red heart shaped finger jello and candle light.  Plus, we had red brownies and ice cream for dessert - or at least I did.  The rest of the brownies were eaten later in the weekend.

The rest of the week was spent cleaning, grocery shopping and project finishing.  Our bathroom hadn't gotten the extreme clean before we moved in so I started in on it on Wednesday night.  The kids had a half day on Thursday and as you can see, Jessica and Anika got into it, literally.  I had told them there would be no baths until the thing was clean.  It took awhile, but there have been baths since.  Jessica decided that cleaning bathrooms is fun.  I'll be milking that one for weeks to come.