Happy Valentine's Day

We're having fun celebrating Valentine's Day (aka: Binge on Sweets in the Name of Love Day) around here! We've been busy with a variety of preparations over the past week. Here's a little sampling of what we've been up to...
The girls worked on "Valentine Dots" on Saturday afternoon. A perfect kid project, with almost no help from Mom!Then Eva painstakingly divided them all into 9 piles to be bagged up for special friends at church. The glue stick and bingo dopper in the background are evidence of the heart cards she made later on.
We've made about a gillion other Valentine cards and pictures, but no photos of those.

Valentine's Day breakfast. A few little trinkets, special heart shaped cakes (don't tell my conscience that I someone named Little Debbie made those), and pink milk (again, no one needs to know that I may or may not have contaminated our organic raw milk with a drop of red food coloring). We also had soaked oatmeal :).
I brought Hope to the table still half asleep, so she opened her eyes to our candlelit breakfast. We all had fun watching her take in the little celebration with childlike wonder, breathing out "Oh my, oh my." There is nothing better than seeing through the eyes of a child.


(Extra credit will be awarded to any commenter who can guess what the last occasion was that I used those candle holders. I'll give you a hint: it was in the summer.)

At preschool last week, Hope had a special Valentine's party, and at school today Eva will be exchanging Fun Dip for all kinds of Valentine's goodies too. Life is good. Really good.

When the mail came, Hope opened a card from Grandma Patenaude with a dollar for each of the girls in it. Eva will have to see hers when she comes home from school, but for now, Hope is celebrating enough for the two of them. "My OWN dollar! My OWN dollar! Now I can buy an American Girl doll!" Dear three year old, more likely something from the dollar spot at Target, which will probably be just as awesome. Thanks Grandma!

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you. Squeeze the ones you love today!