Valentines fun

Another Valentines has come and gone. Valentine's Day is Lydia's favorite holiday so she has been super excited. We did our mailboxes which were a huge hit. The one new thing we did was instead of just decorating Jared and Lydia's door with hearts the night before Valentines we added a new heart with something we loved about them each night for the past 2 weeks.  I am not sure if they enjoyed it more than just one night so we will probably rotate years.  Maybe as they get older they will enjoy that one more. We had lots of heart shaped food and fun learning times and today after church we decorated cookies and then delivered them to friends which was really fun.  I enjoyed delivering them today so we could visit with the families but also hope to do some heart attacks with Jared and Lydia soon, maybe next year we will start that tradition since they will be a little older. We made a yummy Valentine themed dinner with our strawberry soda floats.  For each other Mark and I put together a fire pit "cook box".  (He also got me flowers) When we had our friends the Players' over for tin foil dinners on New Years they supplied all the necessary tools for getting our fire going.  We really want to use our fire pit so we decided to copy them and put together a cook box.  I got a hatchet, (this was like 2 days before Valentines and the cashier at Lowes joked about it being a suspicious Valentines gift) a charcoal chimney, some heavy duty foil, tongs and charcoal.  We are set to use our fire pit once it warms up a little. Lydia made some Valentines for her Sunbeam teachers and was so excited to hand them out.  We sat down in Sacrament meeting and she was on the lookout for the teachers.  When she saw one she ran over and shouted Happy Valentines day!  This teacher is an older single sister and I think it made her really happy.  Her other teacher typically sits behind or in front of our family and she was running late today. Lydia was watching the door like a hawk and kept asking where Sister Alman was. She was pretty relieved when she came in after the Sacrament. Jared and Lydia both had fun making their Valentines for their classmates.  I remember Jared writing his out last year and it taking a really long time.  This year he sat down and got them done super fast. His writing has really advanced since he has been at school.  His penmanship could use a lot of help but he can do it quickly and without putting up a fuss at all. It was really nice to have a chance to visit with some families from our ward too.

I will be sad to take down our Valentine decorations as they are some of my favorites but Saint Patricks Day is fun too.  It's always fun to decorate a space for the first time.  We are almost out of "first time" Holiday decorating as we have been in our house now for about 8 months.

Jared still really loves money.  We actually got him a ceramic UVA piggy bank for his birthday and no less then 2 weeks later he dropped it and it broke. It was a sad moment.  Then shortly before Valentines day I saw these squishy (unbreakable) piggy banks at Target's dollar section and knew they would be a big hit. I wish I got a picture of the that exact moment when he saw it.  Super fun. They really look forward to these Valentine Mailboxes all year.  Each year I think I should do these throughout the year, not just at Valentines but I haven't quite gotten myself together enough to do it. Probably because I am not sure I want to use them and make them less special for Valentines. Besides the piggy bank all of Jared's mailbox items were Star Wars related so he was especially thrilled.

Learning time fun:  We had an unexpected snow day Monday and Tuesday right after Valentines so I pulled out more learning times and a few science experiments. It was a fun way to spend our snow day.

Jared hunted for sight words and Lydia found the same words and identified the beginning letter and its sound.

The joy of baking soda and vinegar. 

Valentine's Themed dinner.  Costco had these red and "white" heart shaped raviolis available and I knew when I saw them I would buy them.  I am such a sucker for these holiday marketing tools! 

Heart shaped french toast and pancakes

Here is Mark with our yearly valentine puzzle. We get one for each other each year. 2016: Vintage cereals boxes. 

We sure love these 

 two and can't really imagine life without them.