A Valentine

Valentine's Day is an interesting holiday for me. We don't really celebrate it at my house like others do. Hubby and I will exchange cards and some years there will be flowers waiting for me in the kitchen when I get up. But we don't go out (we hate crowds) and we don't buy gifts. I am thrilled and happy with this non-stress holiday! That said, I do have a little love in my heart for the valentines that kids give to each other.

This year, LM made his for his classmates and a few of his adult friends. If you remember, a couple of years ago we made these. 

Here is what we made this year. I am sorry for the crappy photos.  I took them with my iPhone at work.

Here is what you need to make these cute valentines for almost no money!

• regular brown lunch sacks
• clear plastic treat bags ( I had these, but you can use snack bags or anything you have around)
• Tag design and sticker paper- I printed off these tags on sticker paper from LittleSproutCreations.
• Stickers for closing the plastic bags and goodies to put inside.  I used extra heart stickers and M&Ms

1. Fill the clear bags with your choice of goodies.  I used M&Ms because I wanted something that I could pack flat.  I put between 1/8 and 1/4 Cup in. 
2. Use one of the heart stickers to hold over the folded plastic bag.
3. Open up the lunch sack and place the stickers on the bottom and the M&Ms on top of the stickers.
4. Fold the bag over.  I used the foundation of the bottom of the bag for the size to fold.  I wanted to make sure that my end product was somewhat flat so that it would be easy for my toddler to hold and that they were all a unified size.
5. Use the big sticker already cut out, to hold the bag closed.  I used sticker paper, but you could use double sided tape or string.  
6. Bobs your Uncle, you have a cute valentine.

Of course, I had wanted to decorate the crap out of these things, but I realize that my son isn't represented very much if I girl it up. But.... if you had a girl imagine how cute this would be with a strip of lace wrapped around the package and held down with the sticker.  You also don't have to do dinosaurs, but could do any other image and saying that you like.  I went quick and easy with mine so I just downloaded some already made.   I also just wrote in my son's name.


Do you have a cute Valentine's Day idea?

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Snap Shot Memory

Do you know what a snap shot memory is?  I know you do... it is a piece of time, image, feeling, thought that you take a quick mental picture of a file it in your memory bank for ever.  I am a visual person and have several of these... sitting with my Dad just before he died, my Mom and I planting flower bulbs in the middle of winter so we had hope for the spring, my husband juggling oranges in the grocery store.... any who.... I had another snap shot memory this past Valentine's Day.

My husband and I have never had the chance to spend many Valentine's Days together due to our schedules.  Thus, this day has turned into a non-stress day for us.  We usually do cards for each other and sometimes a treat i.e. flowers, candy or a sweet but we don't stress about it.  This year things were a bit different because of The Boy.  We (TB and I) had to get together a card/treat for his daycare teachers to show how much he loves them and I have to admit that as I was cooking up their treat, I began to get into the spirit of the day!  We made some special candy and these Felt Fortune Cookies from Martha Stewart.

 

TB then had a good time trying to eat the cookies as I extracted them from his tiny little hands and packaged them in Chinese food take-out containers.  We used the sayings from the Conversation Hearts for the fortunes.  TB also gave out several cookies to some of the other special people in his life.... they were totally charmed.

The best part of Valentine's Day was that TH got up early with TB so I could sleep in.  My two men then proceeded to MAKE me a valentine with... get this... fingerpaint!  TH hates messes so this is crazy thoughtful and just about brought me to tears when I saw my first Mommy Valentine and that it was handmade!  I don't think TH knows how much this means to me now and probably for the rest of my life.  It was a snap shot memory to file away.