Happy Heart Day!

We've had fun counting down to Valentine's day with our little advent calendar.  Each envelope has something simple in it for the day, such as "on the 2nd day of Valentines, be a love bug and give someone a hug" and "On the 8th day of Valentines, think of someone on your street and take them a special treat."

It's also our countdown to baby Asher.  Originally, the c-section was scheduled for tomorrow, but will be next Friday instead.  If I go into labor on my own before that, the doctor will let me try a vbac.

We wrote these to each other one night as part of our advent.  

 And Samara has been making Valentine cards for us all month.

We put new labels on hand sanitizer for our teacher gifts.  Labels found here.   They are super cute and simple to make.  However, next time I'll make sure not to get the bottles with the orange spouts. 

I  got the fishbowl printable and matching game from that site as well.   I heart free printables!!

Does staying up late with a blog-stalking addiction qualify as creative talent?  Perfect.  I will keep working on growing my talent.

My brilliantly creative friend Malia designed this template and let me alter the colors and backgrounds to create the girls' valentine cards.  I'm really happy with how they turned out!



Once the card was printed, we used "scratch off" heart stickers to hide the words.

Lizzie kept asking to hold her "valen card".  One day I found her on the island putting stickers on herself.  I yelled at her to stop and really startled her.  I really need to be less uptight and let them help with the the projects that I do "for them".  I felt so sheepish when I saw how well she put the stickers on and realized all along she'd been asking for her card because she wanted to put the stickers on.


Samara was very happy when she came home with a mailbox full of valentines.  I loved seeing all the kids' collection boxes when I dropped her off at school.  They were so creative and fun!   The red chevron-striped fry box with licorice was my favorite.  It has red vines in it and says, "I only have fries for you."  I'm saving that idea for next year.  

After watching the Peanuts valentine special, Samara wanted to find "heart-shaped shaving lotion" for Ben.  In that episode, Violet wants to buy some for her male teacher.  Samara settled on shaving cream but insisted it be a valentine-eve present because "we give presents on Christmas Eve so why can't we give presents on Valentine's eve?"

We had a nice family dinner and these baked pink donuts for dessert.  I sure love my sweet valentines.

Ben has a contact in the nutrition department who was able to "can" his valentines treats for us.  We all loved them!  All he had to ask was "can?  can?"  Such a clever husband I have. :)

I may have a new favorite holiday.