Be My Valentine 2013

Despite the fact that I didn't do a lot, personally, to celebrate this year, Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays. I'm nine years old and barf at romance, and so our celebrations are usually of my favorite, family-centered type. Pink and red are great colors to work with, the heart is iconic, and any occasion that encourages people to send handmade greeting cards, and inspires our homeschool group to throw one of our "class parties," is an okay holiday by me!

Valentine-themed woodworking project at our local Lowe's Build-and-Grow Clinic

These workshops are among my kiddos' favorite activities, EVER. And they're free!!!

making valentines for their pen pals and our homeschool class party

Syd made an assortment of valentines, including a few that I let her make from our building block stash

Will took her cardboard necklace project one step further by using wood discs from our stash

How can you not love a valentine made using POWER TOOLS?!?

I kept my mouth entirely shut about how she scribbled on each disc in gel pen for decoration, even though we have plenty of scrapbook paper and a heart punch that would have been JUST the right size for the discs

She cut embroidery floss and threaded it through the hole in each disc, gave it to me to knot the floss well, then wrapped it around an index card, taped it down, and wrote "From Willow" on the card. And I tell you what, she got a HUGE thrill seeing how many kids put on her necklace right away after receiving it. 

I never regret keeping my mouth shut.

I didn't keep my mouth shut when I asked Matt to help the girls make our traditional Valentine's Day mailbox  instead of me and he instead concocted some weird thing with shipping boxes, aluminum foil, and a box knife, but of course they turned out great, too:

Although, you know, MY mailbox project has a cute little flag with the kid's name on it. Next year...

In fact, other than the party, all we really did THIS year was buy red carnations for the living room

The girls have been such good sports with their lousy-feeling, crabby, tired, humorless mother this winter, however, that I've been keeping my head busy planning some extra-fun activities for us to do now that I'm feeling better (knock on wood!). And those activities may, indeed, involve the colors red and pink, and various varieties of the heart shape.

It'll be Valentine's Day 2: Electric Boogaloo!