Valentine Prep 2014

I really am excited to get these valentine prep pictures up on the blog. Partly because I had so much fun making valentines and treats with the kiddos (and Jason when he was available) and partly because it means I get to work on our We Love to Be a Family Day post next. yay!! 

First up, we kicked off February with a family home evening about loving our family and those around us. For our treat we made little personal size heart pies. I had seen the idea for the pies on pinterest. The result was edible, but not great. At least we had fun making them and getting ourselves covered in flour.

I can't resist posting these pictures of Atticus. He is becoming such a face maker lately as he works on emphasizing his expressions and moods. 

And here is my darling girl still tired from her nap and snuggled up to me, insisting that Mommy take a picture of "sleepy". Well, here is what sleepy looks like.

And what handsome looks like.

And now here is a series of photos of little hands helping. I love seeing those little hands helping out. So sweet and special.

This picture is blurry. But I had to post it as it is one of the rare times that I caught Milayla's real smile before she moved on to her silly smile or to something else entirely. So beautiful.

Jason's hands were in there an awful lot as well. 

Bizarrely enough, I don't think I took a picture of the finished product. They looked pretty great. The kids did a great job!

Then it was on to our heart attack. Atticus was very insistent that he sound out and spell them on his own. He did pretty well. His spelling is really coming along. Milayla did really well on expressing what she wanted the hearts from her to say.

Since we did the hearts in all different colors, when we put the hearts around our kitchen (which are still up because we like them so much) it looked like we had big candy hearts all over the cupboards and walls. I rather like having them up because when the kids and I are hanging out in the kitchen (for meals, or meal prep, or craft time etc) Atticus will read the hearts and Milayla will point to which ones she wants read. It means that they are reading some wonderful things about each other and our family every single day and I love it. We need more good things on our walls. It just seems like that is the last thing to happen around here when we move, if it should happen at all. That needs to change. We need more pictures.

Here are just a few of those awesome hearts.

An Atticus heart - 'Mommy's kisses + cuddles' (because he likes them)

The one with 'TOYS 4551' says, in entirety - 'Milayla's sharing toys' because Atticus likes that Milayla shares toys really well. And then there is a yellow heart about daddy being the best and a green heart about what a great helper and hard worker Atticus is.

Milayla's splendid art work

Then the kids helped me make a list of people that they wanted to send valentines out to. They sent out a ton in the mail (I hope they all made it! ) and then made a ton for friends here. They really worked their little hearts out on those. The ones that they spent the most time working on were the ones that they made for our family. They spent a lot of time cutting and gluing and making little mosaic hearts and coming up with what they wanted to write.

I am so loving Atticus' writing and how well his sounding out of words has come. We've started copy work to really help him get a handle on new words and the structure of sentences (spaces, when uppercase etc). 

And, of course, Milayla mentions cuddles whenever possible!

I'm kind of in love with the fact that we have found a way to enjoy this holiday with it being fun and not a lot of pressure. We just enjoy time together. Always appreciated. Will post on our We Love to Be a Family Day soon!