A Worley Valentine

Poor Isaiah…

Today started with Isaiah waking up throwing up, and NO rain for rain catching. How could the weather people be THAT wrong? I could have a pity party because I LOVE parties, but in stead I’ll rub Isaiah’s back and continually clean the vomit that can’t seem to make it in the trash barrel (that ones for you Kayla) directly below him. Every once in while when he drifts off I’ll have brief breaks to write about our week-long Valentine’s Day party that brought smiles all around. Focus on happy thoughts, that’s what I always say.

Roses from my sweetheart. When he brought them in Isaiah said, “Mommy! Look what Daddy got you at work!” What does Isaiah think his Daddy does all day?

I love holidays. There I admitted it and that is the first step in the process…right? I have always loved decorating and planning parties and kids are the perfect recipients of my addiction! I know a lot of people have a strange relationship with Valentine’s Day and I just think they’re missing an opportunity to have fun. It only makes it better that some of my favorite people share their birthday with this day filled with hearts, roses and chocolates. Did I mention my strong affection for all three of those things also? We’ve done a lot of things in the Worley house for Valentine’s Day. I posted here: http://ourstoryoursong.wordpress.com/2013/02/02/the-love-bugs-are-back/ about the Love Bugs visiting and past Valentine’s Day activities we’ve done.

But this year we had a Valentine’s week of epic proportions. (It would appear “epic” is the cool word these days so I’ll record that fact here.) Once again I pinned WAAAYYY more than we had any chance of getting done, but it was fun. Step one: decorate everything you can!

The Valentine lights make the transition from all the Christmas decorations to NONE a little easier to handle.

Don’t you LOVE my Valentine wreath?

My friend Geneva made it for me out of paper. You can check out all her super crafty ideas here: http://genevachapin.typepad.com/genevas_stamping_designs/page/2/

Even the schoolroom!

Samuel heart punched and wrote all the numbers on the calendar pieces for me.

It is very easy to use heart cookie cutters for EVERYTHING, and so I did!

Blueberry Pancake Cookies from here: http://realsustenance.com/buttery-blueberry-pancake-cookies-glutengraineggstarchsoy-free-with-directions-to-make-sugar-free/

You had to really think about them being heart shaped, but they tasted Yumtastic.

Pumpkin Waffles with Heart Bacon.

The bacon turned out more like X’s and O’s but that worked also!

Apple Switcheroos with butterkaise cheese hearts.

The boys had a lot of fun making these.

I found the heart skewers at the Dollar Tree. Perfect!

Valentine Tortilla Pizza and strawberry hearts.

Heart stamped toast with heart strawberries.

Heart cheese sandwiches with heart pepperoni.

Isaiah loved putting the “puzzle” together and then taking bites and trying to match the bite on the other piece.

Heart turkey sandwich dogs and fruit & cheese arrows.

It took me no less than six times to figure out how to cut these properly to make this work.

Heart hot dogs with love cheese, heart ketchup and heart watermelon.

This one was ALL Daddy! Cupid’s arrow tortillas.

We had to add a little Science in the kitchen.

We made homemade heart gum drops:

Taking turns measuring and mixing.

Stir, stir, stir.

The boys (and their friends) really enjoyed these. You can find the recipe here: http://www.momontimeout.com/2013/01/valentines-day-homemade-gumdrops/

ENJOY! And then call the dentist!

I always try to balance the sweet treats with healthy alternatives so we made homemade frozen yogurt pops. These were so yummy! I used the same strawberry greek yogurt I dip blueberries and raspberries in and freeze for a sweet treat.

Healthy frozen yogurt pops.

These are simple to make. Trace hearts on wax paper, flip it over, put a dollop of yogurt in the middle and let the kiddos spread it within the lines with the popsicle stick. Set the stick in and cover it with a little more yogurt and freeze.

A snack you can feel good about!

We also did some FUN crafts:

Cookie cutters are good for SO many things!

Samuel gets so upset that Isaiah’s “rushes” through his crafts. He asked Noah when he got home, “Daddy, do you like my pictures? Well, do you think Isaiah’s looks a little….rushed?” Poor Noah.

Samuel made his Valentine to take to Daddy’s office.

Making tye dye hearts.

I had forgotten how much fun simple spray bottles are for little ones! I’ll  have to add them in more plans.

What we think the Love Bugs might look like.

OK…the Love Bug cash….Those little Love Bugs had Isaiah in quite a tizzy one morning. He made it a habit of getting up at the crack of dawn every morning and running to the fireplace to see what the Love Bugs brought. On one particular morning there wasn’t anything in the box and Isaiah had asked the Love Bugs for a very specific type of glow sticks two nights in a row. When I came into the kitchen Noah informed me that it appeared the Love Bugs did not come the night before. Wide eyed and mouth half-open I ran to the school room to “think” about why that may be. Then I realized that Samuel had moved the Love Bug hotel into his room and SURELY they thought they were supposed to leave the gifts in there that night. Sure enough, the Love Bugs left them each $5 to use at the Dollar Store. Whew…that was a close one.

Glitter glue!

I kept telling Isaiah to be careful with the glue. One of the bottles was clogged and I tried to squeeze it apparently a little too hard because the entire top popped out and glitter glue is STILL being found in places. There was a MUCH bigger blob above this one that I cleaned before it dawned on me to start taking pictures of our failures so  you can see it’s rare things run as smooth as I blog them!

Glittery handprints.

Samuel’s focused craft face.

When we finished them all, my entry looked like this:

It’s no secret I love hand/foot print art. I’ve learned to make it right on the 12×12 paper to stick it in an album right away.

Our sweet little Love Bugs.

We used washable markers for Isaiah’s tye dye heart which blended much better than the sharpie’s we used for Samuel’s (top)

The boys also made new T-shirts with stamps and puffy paints.

How I used Valentine’s Fun in school:

Five Little Valentine’s math song.

Sorting and counting Valentine candy.

Sorting and graphing Valentine Skittles.

Using Valentine candy to answer story problems.

Finally a math worksheet that Samuel had to think through.

Samuel is learning adjectives and adverbs and did a three step process with a love theme. I was wishing I had a Valentine’s Madlibs!

Once I figured out Samuel liked the math with steps, I found a few more worksheets for him.

Making a Valentine book to learn my colors and writing.

We played Valentine lotto with our sight words.

We played Valentine BINGO with candy markers.

Isaiah spent a long time sorting, counting and mixing Valentine colored beads.

He also made a perfect Valentine for Daddy’s office.

I had this box of chocolates and gave the boys pink and brown play dough and heart molds and they made me a Valentine gift. It was so nice!

As always we read LOTS of books! Our favorite for sure was this one:

We also read these (and many, many more!)

And we watched:

and a few other Disney Valentine themed shows, but there just wasn’t a lot of TV time left in the day.

I added in some fun dinner activities this time because this seems to be becoming a stressful part of our day. One was to make up a family song which always ended in lots of laughter. In school we sang (to Jingle Bells)

Valentine

Valentine

You’re my Valentine.

‘Cause I love you , oh, so much,

Sweet (Samuel, Isaiah) of mine!

Noah sang his song like Buddy in the movie Elf and had us all cracking up.

I made these two activities to encourage positive attitudes as the night winds down:

Acts of Kindness Vase. The boys have to work hard to earn a heart by doing a random act of kindness AND not expecting praise for it!!

Each person at the table picks a heart and based on the color had to perform a task. It may be to sing a song, say something nice about each person at the table or hug the person on your left. This one will stick around a while longer.

We played Valentine “I Spy” and “Red Light Green Light” as we shuttled from each of our daily activities. We finished the week with a trip to have lunch with Daddy at his office. I don’t know why we don’t do this more often because the boys always LOVE it! We had an extra surprise for them and took them to get frozen yogurt. I could eat TCBY EVERY day if it wasn’t so expensive!

Wearing our Valentine’s best!

By the time I finished this post today Isaiah is eating, playing Legos and the sun is out! He never had a fever or anything. Positive thoughts are working in our favor today. Thank Jesus for another day of YOUR blessings!