A little Valentine's Red to break up the Winter Blue's

Although Valentine's Day isn't a holiday as eagerly anticipated as Christmas, Easter or birthdays, it is a nice way to break up the doldrums of a cold winter....and the past few weeks have been dreary and cold.


Every year we attend our homeschool Explore Now's Valentine's Party and this year was no exception. Usually I take the kids to Walmart and let them pick out the paper valentines they will share with the others, this year however, we chose to make them. The kids, including Ryan, enjoyed cutting, paper punching and stamping lots of Valentine's (thanks Jen for sharing your stamps). Their creativity really came out...I especially enjoyed watching Connor create robot valentines out of hearts and Ryan stamping rainbow designs. I also enjoyed watching Cailin help Delaney, they have been working and playing together very well lately.

For Delaney's preschool class we read the book "Guess How Much I Love You" and decorated sugar cookies. Even the older kids joined in to see how much frosting and sprinkles one cookie could hold.

Yummy!

Enjoying a delicious bite.

Once again I was thrilled that Ryan wanted to join in, he usually doesn't enjoy getting his hands messy....perhap he knew that to eat a cookie he must first make the cookie.

The day of the party finally arrived and we had a fun afternoon of food and games with the other kids.

They all enjoyed getting together with their friends. Ryan and Connor made a new friend too. I was proud of Ryan, he initiated the first conversation with Seth. This too, is something difficult for him. Here the kids played a game called 'Giggle Belly's' Of course, giggles were a-plenty.

Playing a game of catch....with your head! What fun.

Gathering all the Valentine's that they got....of course hoping (and looking) for some candy treats too.

Later that night the kids enjoyed a special treat of chocolate donuts after dinner. Barry gave me a beatiful boquet of pink roses. I got the kids to bed early and had a wonderful dinner-date of grilled steak and chicken with vegetable kabobs on the side with Barry.