For the Love.

 Eeks, this year is screaming by.  I hope I will get to reflect more on this crazy year later-but for now I'm focusing on a recent highlight for our kids: Valentine's Day!

I don't know at what point in my life Valentine's day went from a romantic holiday to a day for the kids to exchange cards and candy (or in the girls' case, not candy). This year I even spent an afternoon cutting and gluing all for the sake of love.  It's not ideal-but instead of complaining, I will seize this opportunity to teach our children about giving and love.

Nathan's class had a Valentine's party with card exchange, games, and a Valentine's box competition.  He was adamant that his cards not have anything that may sound romantic...don't want to give the wrong impression!

He went with mini boxes of Star Wars stickers.  It was simple enough, no card, just dutifully write each kids' name on the box-we didn't even buy candy.  Everyone was happy.

If it wasn't for having a big brother in public school, Valentine's day wouldn't have meant much to the girls.  However, they wanted to make a box too and exchange cards with their friends at Classical Conversations (our homeschool group).  It was super last minute, but dear old mom pulled through and organized a Valentine exchange (last minute because I was hoping someone else would do it).  It was simple, but the girls and I got to create bags for each of the students.  We made a total of 50 Valentine bags.  I cut out hearts and all three girls glued them on to the bags.  They were all one of a kind!  (I should have taken a better picture to showcase their hard work.)

  It sounds tedious, but it ended up being a blessing for us to get to work together to do something kind for our friends.

 

The girls also wrote out cards to their classmates.  They couldn't bring candy so Ella picked out some cards with woodland creatures that came with an eraser...they were cute.  Addie ended up handing out Ella and Nathan's leftovers, so that worked out well too!

Finally for their box reveal! 

 Matt and I opted to not participate this year.  We still had memories of gluing on Gandolf's beard into the wee hours last year.

 Nathan made a piranha plant from Mario Bros.  He wanted it to be square and thus look pixelated.  He said some of his classmates thought it was a cat....

(he didn't win any prizes, and though he is competitive, he was not competitive about this event, so it was ok)

Addie constructed an owl.

Ella made a Valentine fox.

(which he had to cut open to get the Valentine's out)

Evelyn didn't make a box, but still got a photo since she's pretty in pink. :)

 

Our actual Valentine's day consisted or church, lunch at Qdoba, and then basketball practice for Nathan and Ella.  It wasn't romantic or special, but it was good.

What would we do without this crazy bunch?!

Hope you had a happy Valentine's Day!