Be Mine

Yes, I know that the holiday of love is long past now, but I never blogged about any of our V-Day activities.

My first undertaking with the kids was just a little sticker fun. They had never used stickers before, so I bought some nice Elmo Valentine ones to pique their interest. On each piece of card stock, I made a grid of dots with a red marker so they would have something to aim for. Check out the top of Jake's page. Following in his father's footsteps, he was super concerned with putting Elmo right where he was supposed to be on the dots. Of course, he's a toddler, so his attention span wore out after the first few stickers, & his attention to detail followed suit, but I just thought it was an interesting difference from Mal's page. Notice that the only sticker anywhere near a dot on our free-spirited child's page is the first one that I placed as I was showing her how to do it. So funny!
Our next project was an idea supplied by Cassie (thank you!) to make tissue paper hearts. The pink construction paper heart is mounted on clear contact paper so that the middle is sticky for the tissue paper "filling." Jake & Mal had so much fun with this one!

The careful child slowly filling his heart...
...& his sister hogging all the tissue paper. I "helped" her share.
Even cleaning up the extra pieces was fun! Don't worry, I got out the vacuum after a minute & made quick work of this job.
The finished product!
Their final V-Day activity was helping Mommy ice the sugar cookies she'd made. Waiting in anticipation...
Jake trying his hand at it...
and then experiencing the crushing disappointment that followed having to put the cookie on the drying rack.
Mal taking a turn. (Jake licking icing off his fingers as he watched.)
It turns out that 18-month-olds don't exactly get the concept of seeing & even touching food but not eating it. I ended up just giving them each the cookie they'd dipped & then finishing the job myself as they clearly weren't going to leave any cookie behind. They settled for a craisin snack instead.
Mommy's finished product
Mal trying out her new cooking set from Mimi & Pops
Jake explaining the intricacies of his new Elmo cell phone to Daddy
Reading their Valentines
The twins got some fun goodies from Mommy & Daddy, including coloring books & crayons, which are a new phenomenon in our house. Here's to hoping the crayons don't find too many walls! It was a fun week & a fun day as a family. I never got around to letting them make their Valentine counting books (also from Cassie) but part of the beauty of kids their age is that they totally won't care if we do it two weeks past the holiday!

J & I got to enjoy a nice dinner at Chamberlain's & a movie on Saturday night without the kids. Thank goodness for babysitters!