Joe and I don't celebrate Valentines Day, we never have he hates it and honestly i feel like it a little bit of a waste of money. I like it when he surprises me with things just because he wants to not because of a date. However having said that growing up my mom always made us feel special with candy, cards, and flowers. It was fun to look forward to that special small rose plant that i would try to keep alive for months after and I never felt bad if I didn't have a Valentine or didn't get anything at school. I have chosen to keep that special tradition alive for my kids because I don't want them to feel sad or like we as parents don't care, and as a parent it is so much fun!
So the new Haynie tradition? Family Heart Day! Now this year I had big plans, pink heart pancakes and bacon for breakfast, a valentines lunch for madi and a few friends of heart shaped sandwhiches, apples and special heart shaped ice cubes, and a heart shaped pizza with sugar cookies for dinner. Well breakfast didn't pan out (tuesdays are my day for preschool carpool and its just to early) friends cancelled on lunch, and we ended up eating pizza the night before because I got out of work late so we wern't going to have pizza 2 nights in a row! Oh well we still had a great day.
Our celebration started a week before at the announcement that Madi's class would be having a party complete with mailboxes to deliver valentines in. They hand made their boxes so she wanted to hand make all her valentines. (insert mom super excited "this will be so much fun!, then eye roll to realize that mom will probably be hand making 19 of the 20 valentines...by herself)
We chose foam hearts as the base, added some colorful markers and dum-dum suckers.
Caleb was so helpful... (yes he is climbing under the chair and over the little chair bar at this point. he thinks its funny to bite toes under the table and if the chairs are tucked in he will find any way possible)
What?? As long as my head doesn't get stuck I can get anywhere...
Madi wanted to practice her letters like they do in class so I drew dashed lines in black and hah her trace the lines in a different color. She loved making daddys and to my surprise she sat for 2 hours and did every single one. TO: (friends name) on the front and FROM: Madi H. on the back. (She now believes that there is an H in her first name because she goes by Madi H. in class because there is another Madi.)
The finished product
This is a better example of her work. I was so proud of her, she won't even stop for dinner because her friends would be sad if she didn't finish. This enthusiasm did come back to haunt me however because I started the project a week before thinking it would take us that long to finish them, so every morning we had the no its not time to take them to your friends today talk.
She had a great time at her party, sadly however she didn't get to have her friend lunch. Mom made it up to her by having a chick fil a lunch and suprise valentine bags from Grandma Angee and Papa. The kids also got cards from Grandma and Papa Haynie with $5 in them to wich she exclaimed "look mom grandma haynie gave me 500 dollars!"
For dinner we chose to have pink heart pancakes, bacon, eggs, and strawberries. We even had a special sprite with cherry flavored heart shaped ice cubes. We finished the day with a small gift from mom and dad. An elephant for madi, a zebra for caleb and rubber ducks and mini m&m's for both of them. all in all a very happy heart day!
he was very excited by the surprise!
