Valentine's Week

Valentine's Day turns into a week-long - and sometime's month-long - event at our house. I love the easy opportunity that this holiday gives to show our kids and loved ones some of the special things we love about them. I didn't get any pictures, but every year we have mailboxes that fill up *almost* daily with a special note or treat for the kids from Alex or I. This year Alex was the big winner when he made this Hulk Valentine for Carter one day. Carter carried it around for over a week, and was often heard muttering 'Hulk smashing day' wherever he was. 

One of my favorite things to do with O around the holidays is to find special day-specific hair. This year's heart creation (Thanks 100% to a youtube hair stylist with MUCH more creativity and talent than me) turned out beautiful, and was a huge hit. Apparently her school teacher took her around to a couple other classrooms to show it off, and her dance teacher took pictures so she could try to recreate later. O loves this special attention, she spent all day asking people if they had seen her hearts :).

O has formed a special friendship with 5 little girls in her TK class that are all afternoon friends (the class splits and half arrive 2 hours earlier). We have a hard time scheduling play dates and following through (someone is always sick), so we decided to have a Valentine's tea party for all of them together. It was a huge hit, and may have to happen again in the future :)

Carter was so happy to have 2 friends coming to the party as well, it made his day. He insisted on getting into his tea party clothes just like Olivia was :). His Spiderman costume fit in perfectly. 

After the girls arrived, they got to use crayons to rub magic love messages on some artwork. I didn't do a good job documenting all of the activities, but this was a super easy kid craft that we will definitely do again. 

The other craft that Olivia picked was heart shaped sun catchers. a little card stock, some contact paper, and tissue paper made a great party activity :). You can kind of see them in the background of the next picture. The girls were so cute, sharing with each other and giving each other strongly worded advice. It's easy to see that this little group is inseparable at school, and they try to be just as inseparable on the off days :).

These kids were all so cute decorating their cookies. The boys had a little more supervision, so the girls had crazy piles of sprinkles on their plates. However, the girls had less to take home, some of them couldn't stop eating while they decorated :).

Somehow I don't have any pictures of the actual tea party. We started by talking about some of the ways that princesses act at a tea party, then served heart shaped tea sandwiches, fruit salad with heart shaped fruit, pink sprinkle dipped wafers, and pretzels. They also got to drink their 'tea' (raspberry lemonade) with licorice straws from heart cups.

All in all a very successful party, and a great way to celebrate such a fun group of friends for O.

We skipped the cleanup of the party (or procrastinated it at least) and went to the OSU @ Cal Men's Basketball game that afternoon. I have a super cute little beaver fan who insisted on wearing his beaver hat even though it was quite warm.

After the game we went out for snow ice cream at Vampire Bakery. It has become my favorite dessert place in the Bay Area, everything I have had has been wonderful.

All of these fun activities happened the day before Valentine's Day, and I realized that evening that I hadn't planned anything for the actual holiday. Luckily all you need for a great holiday breakfast is a cookie cutter and some colored sprinkles :). The kids were totally impressed, and I get a pass for prepared mom!

The most exciting part of our day happened a little while after breakfast. While I was cleaning it up, the kids were playing happily in the living room. Maybe they were playing a little too happily, because when I looked into the room I saw them dumping an entire bottle of Febreze onto the floor. It just smells too good to spray once! I went to grab a towel or two to soak up what I could, and when I was working on that, Makenzie (with an unidentified helper) opened the fridge and started pulling stuff out. The one thing that she found that could be spilled was a carton of 1/2 & 1/2 that I had purchased for Alex and my at-home date night that evening...no fondue for us :(. The 1/2 & 1/2 made it all over the kitchen floor, the oven, and Kenzie, so another cleanup effort was needed. After I mopped that up and got Kenzie changed, I turned on a movie, grabbed some chocolate, and headed to my room for a while. Sometimes Mom just needs a break :).

Dad was working that day, so the kids and I spent the morning making some Valentines for people we love. It was fun to reiterate the meaning behind the holiday for the kids, and to hear some of the creative things that they love about their friends and family. My personal favorite: 'I made you this card to help you be happy because I am your best friend and you are sad when I'm not with you'...to Auntie Em from Olivia :)

The day after Valentine's was President's Day, so Alex and Emily (and everyone else on the planet) had the day off. I was so glad that Emily called to do something together, so we decided to brave Muir Woods National Forest. It was a beautiful forest with paths throughout the trees. It was a very serene place, until we showed up at least! The kids were super excited to explore, and not super quiet about it.

My favorite part of any family activity near a bridge: Pooh Sticks :) I can't remember who won, but we were surprised that a few of them even made it through based on their weight...maybe next time I will help the kids find sticks to use.

My little Sleeping Beauty didn't quite make it through the whole outing.