Valentine's Day

This year's Valentine's Day was super fun because now that Alia's in school, I realize every major holiday is a marketing dream for companies with kids being a huge target audience. And you know what, I'll admit I'm a total sucker for it.

However, I try to use these special holidays to spend quality time with the kids and do fun things like arts and crafts since it's not everyday. Alia's at the age where she gets excited and can actually do a lot of activities now whereas Kian is too young. It will be fun when both kids can participate. Here is what we did this Vday:

I made Alia a special Vday lunch the night before; heart shaped cheese sandwich with a heart sprinkle in the middle, tied with red yarn, a home-made heart card, yogurt with heart sprinkles, strawberries, and some stickers for fun.

Alia and I made Valentines for her class and the nanny. We put one heart shaped Teacake cookie inside. We had to assemble all the pieces, but this was fun and easy for her since there was lots of gluing and stickers involved.

I showed her how to make hand-made chocolate truffles which is actually really easy to do. Just melt chocolate, add cream. Wait until it cools, scoop into balls and chill. Then dip in chocolate and roll your favorite add-ins. We rolled ours in toasted coconut, sprinkles, and almonds. If you stick a toothpick in each truffle, they are easy for little hands to roll and don't make a mess.

I had a ton of these white bakery boxes from Teacake so we made a few boxes. The fun part was that Alia decorated them with stickers, etc.

Alia giving a box of her hand-made truffles to her nanny, Silvia.

The night before Valentine's Day, I showed Alia how to make rice krispy treats which was going to be her surprise Vday present for Daddy the next morning.

We cut the rice krispies in heart shaped and dipped them in white chocolate tinted pink and dark chocolate. Used the same sprinkles as the truffles.

We had so many we decided to make some for the nanny too and I gave some away as well.

Here is the Vday box of rice krispy Alia hid in her closet to give to Tim in the morning who is the one to get her ready for school. The first thing she said to him when he walked in was "Happy Valentine's Day Honeydew" which is what they call each other.

The bunny card was her hand-made card to Tim. I saw it online and it was super easy to make. Just buy a red piece of paper, fold in half. Then have the child dip their thumb and two fingers in white paint to make the bunny face. Color the whiskers and nose with markers.