Heart Day 2014

Valentines are fun to do.  I get so sick of nasty candy though, plus the food dyes that are in some of them too.  I was trying to do non-sugar stuff.  I knew that my kids, and all the kids would get plenty at the school party.  Also I was trying to work with what I already had at home, so that I didn't have to make a 100-mile round trip to the store with 6 little people and spend money.  Plus, I prefer home done things way better.

Our Valentine's preparation started like this:

looking for 40 heart-ish shaped rocks.  Most of them were more triangle shaped.  There were a lot of them and it didn't take us very long to gather them all up.

I took pictures of the kids individually and them let them play with editing their picture on picmonkey.

Spencer did this one: 

Then I did this one because I wanted to see his face better and have the heart rocks on it:  

Kate wanted to give brownies.  It was the one sugary thing that we did this year.  I suggested she could write something about brownie points on hers, but the look of "what is that?" on her face told me that she didn't want to.  She did hers without any help.  I love the sparkles around her head.

Ezra's makes me laugh.  That face!  We popped like 5 batches of (organic) popcorn and put some in a sandwich bag for each person and taped his valentine on it.  He did his mostly himself.  I helped him a little with the speech bubbles. 

Jiles's has a spot for a magnet letter of the initial of each person we gave them to.  

with the letters attached (thanks for the stripes, printer):

Zoe's had a crayon hot glued on the top.   I took so many pictures of her trying to get one in focus.  She   was moving around so much.   Never did get a focused one.

 I did 850x1100 pixel collages on picmonkey to fit on 8.5" x 11" paper,

(This is what I do every year.)

and printed them.  My printer doesn't do the best job.  It's better printing them at the store, but I'd have to think ahead in that case.  I've only done it one year.  It's cheaper at home, anyway.

Ezra helped me paint the rocks.  Spencer had already gone to bed.   Jiles wanted desperately to paint that big one blue.

I like them.

At the school party: 

I was one of the room mothers.  Kate asked me not to bring a lick of sugar.  (Who's child is that?)  I made heart-shaped rolls and brought homemade grape jelly (which for sure has sugar in it) and fresh strawberries.  

Ezra's goody plate looks quite monochromatic.

Kate and her bestie:

The 5th grade: