Our Valentine's Day

We had a nice Valentine's Day today!  I've always loved this holiday since I was a little girl and hope to pass that on to my children :)

Let me back up a few days and share what happened at our Homeschool Co-op on Friday.  We arrived and I noticed that several kids had Valentine's boxes with them.  I wasn't aware of a Valentine party and hadn't been informed of anything, but discovered there was going to be a party and the kids were going to pass out valentines.  I felt so terrible for Davin!!  Here all these kids had these lovely homemade boxes to store their valentines and had brought with valentines to pass out......and my kid had nothing.  Since I just go to the nursery with Dorian and Quinnlyn, I asked somebody if I could run to the store with my little ones to get valentines for Davin.  They said that was okay, so we raced to Wal-Mart and picked out some candy and a cute little bucket for Davin to put his valentines in.  So, it turned out alright in the end!

When I picked Davin up at the end of co-op, he said to me in a hushed tone, "Mama, I'm in love with a girl, and her name is Laura."

"Oh really?" I said, quite taken aback at this news!  "Where is she?" I asked.

"Right there," he said while shyly pointing to a pretty blond girl with a heart-shaped barrette in her hair.   

When we got in the car I asked, "So are you friends with Laura?" 

"Well, I didn't even notice her until the end!" he said, which made me laugh a little.  It appears as though Davin may have seen a few Valentine's Day commercials and wanted to make sure he had a valentine of his own :)

"But," he continued, "she's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen and I'm going to marry her some day!"  

When we got home, he wanted to make her a special valentine.  He cut out a heart and wrote "Be my valentime" on it.  How cute is that?  Then he put it in an envelope, sealed it, and taped a granola bar on the front.  :)  

That night before bed he said, "You know my girlfriend's name is Laura, just like from Little House."  You are on the right track, buddy, if you can talk about Little House with girls :)

So, back to today-Valentine's Day!  We made some shortbread cookies and decided to dip them in chocolate.  Dorian can always be counted on to be "Mama's helper", so he asked for an apron and said continuously: "Dodo do it!" wanting to help with everything.  It can be difficult being patient with a toddler in the kitchen and I don't always let him help (especially if I'm in a big hurry), but I know that it will pay off to have him learning and helping!  Plus, he just loves it!

"Mama's Good Helper", as he calls himself when helping in the kitchen:

 Yummy chocolate!

The finished product:

Davin had fun working on his new Mario puzzle:

Quinnlyn under the kitchen table, looking for scraps I'm sure!

"Uh oh, Mama caught me with this cracker I found!"

 My happy girl:

Quinnlyn likes looking at books:

The valentine Daddy made for Quinn:

 Here's what it said inside: "Love you, Quinners! Love, Dada Beard Face" hahaha

 The valentine Daddy made for the boys.  They loved it!!

The boys' valentine inside:

 The valentine Davin gave me:  It says "It was a fine day at the beach until someone had a case.  I had to go out in the sea and save a airplane from crashing.  I also had to arrest my arch-enemy, dr. fire.  I reflected his fire attacks and deafeated him!  Now I had to get the airplane to safety.  I saved the day!  Happy Valentimes day!"  Quite a unique valentine, eh? I love his creativity!!

The valentines I made for the kids.  Not too impressive!

We also had a nice candlelit dinner as a family!  I put a nice tablecloth on our table, had nice napkins, and the boys' favorite part was drinking their strawberry milk out of wine glasses, or "fancy glasses," as they called them :)  I didn't make a fancy dinner, though!  We had chicken enchilada casserole with a salad.  

We hope everyone had a great Valentine's Day!