I forgot to share

My valentines for the Valentine Exchange. Let's be honest, I was low on ideas so they weren't anything brilliant but I think cute packaging made all the difference.

I started off with some cookie dough that I made and froze ahead of time.  I wrapped each little batch in a big square of freezer paper and sealed it with a heart sticker.

 I just happened to have everything on hand from past projects, except for the large, red pillow boxes that I picked up at xpedx.  Ten frozen cookies about the size of a walnuts fit in the box perfectly.

 I slipped baking instructions into the little chevron bags and they were good to go.

I knew everyone would be getting lots of sweets at the party so this way, they would have a treat for later.

Are you sick of hearing me talk about Valentine's Day?

Because I still wanted to share a few pictures from the valentine exchange. Thanks to Melinda, there's even a picture of me :)

 So I like to go all festive and decorate for the holidays, especially if I'm having a party (I am my mother's daughter after all), but I barely have anything for Valentine's day (because it's not really a holiday anyone decorates for, right?). I'd much rather invest the money in renovations then temporary decorations so decorating for the holidays in this house has been all about big impact on the cheap.  As luck would have it, the garlands of paper doilies and bakers twine that I used last year, fit perfectly across our new living room. And my mom brought over pillows and some pictures from her house to spruce things up(I didn't even ask, she's just that kind of party planner).

 And I washed down the big canvas chalkboard that I have hanging in my living room from Christmas (I still need to tell you about that because I love it) and drew something Valentiney.

Sidenote-Creed's friend Lydia saw this and said, "I thought that guy with the arrows was supposed to be naked." And Creed was shocked and said that she shouldn't talk about naked people and said it would be gross if he was naked.  Haha!

 More old doilies and a little garland from my sister on the fireplace

 I had "All you need is love" hanging down my hallway last year so I put it on our entryway in a big old frame I snagged from my grandma's trash years ago.

 And then, as it turned out, I had several cheap paper garlands and doilies from the past left over and just as the party started, a few friends helped me cover a wall in the kitchen with them.

 The perfect backdrop for cute pictures of friends!

 Add bunches of sugar cookies and frosting (I always let guests frost their own because frosting sugar cookies takes ten million years and then where do you put them all?)

 And sprinkles and candy to decorate the cookies (and some fruit because not everyone eats cookies)

 Add pink sodas and milk of course because what else would you drink with billions of cookies

 And you have yourself a party that's pretty easy to put together.  And your husband may even sneak in to steal food and see you're awesome friends.

 And your friends will go home with baskets of goodies (and tons of cookies because if you're like me, you will make way too many cookies!)

PS- sorry friends who are not pictured. Can you believe I did not remember to pull out my camera until the party was over? How did that happen?

Speaking of Valentine's Day

Every year, I look forward to holding a Valentine's exchange with a few of my friends.  This year I questioned holding it because there's so much other work to do around here, but I love this special time with my friends and decided that it could not be skipped.

In the past, I've had an exact head count and told guests to make a Valentine to exchange with each person attending.  This year I simplified things and told each guest to bring 12 valentines.  That way people weren't stuck making 20 valentines, but I missed having a chance to chat with each and every guest and seeing what each of them made (we exchange Valentines speed dating style and have two minutes with each person).  I wish I could share them all with you, but most of the photos that I took were a blurry mess so here's what I could salvage along with a few photos snagged from friends' blogs.

Susan brought along some of her homemade tattoos (I was secretly hoping she would!)

 Melissa made some bobby-pins and brought along some sweet treats.

Lisa brought some of her stoop waffles and they were amazing as always.

 Karisa handed out pencils engraved with "when this you see, think of me"

 Wendy had cinnamon pancake mix with frosting.

 Holly brought some of her homemade chocolate, (which I did not share with my family because they were too good)

 Melissa W. made little rosebud earrings that she packaged in little flowerpots.

 Nicole made candy mustaches on a stick for everyone, but she made a special set for Creed with a princess, castle, and carriage.

Kristin from Sycamore Street Press brought a card she designed

And that's apparently all I will post because Blogger doesn't seem to want me to upload any more pictures. I'll try to post what I gave out soon and maybe I'll even make it to other party details or that two week vacation that we went on . . .

Creed's Valentines

Creed's Valentines turned out so well this year, but I was in such a rush to get to his class on time that I only have a few hastily shot photos. They are so bad that I am seriously tempted to re-do the whole thing, but let's be honest, I'm two months behind in blogging so that will probably never happen so here they are in all their messy glory :)

Every since Creed spotted some heart-shaped balloons last year, he has been enamored with the idea of handing out heart-shaped balloons as his valentines, totally impractical for a thousand reasons, but I decided to make it work. So one day last week we stepped out on the porch and took a few pictures of him jumping with his arm in the air.

 I was inspired this valentine (Created by one of Larry's ex-girlfriends, Alissa, who I actually think of as one of my blogging friends.  Is that weird?) and thought we could do something similar only stick the balloon string through the card to make it look like Creed was holding on to the balloon and floating away.

I just cut little slits with an exacto and slid the balloon string through them

 I tied a heart-shaped sucker to the bottom of the string so no balloons would float away, but it actually wasn't necessary, the card was enough to weigh it down. If you use 4" x 6" photo paper and balloons like this, you could probably just tie a knot to keep the string from sliding through, but we didn't want to disappoint any preschoolers and we went with the suckers on the bottom just in case.

You should have seen how excited the preschoolers were.  A note of advice if you plan to try something similar, the balloons got really tangled up with our windy weather so next time I would bring a bundle of balloons to your final destination a little early and then add the cards or treats on the spot.  Luckily, we ended up getting them untangled in time with help from another parent.

VAlentine's Day may be the cutest holiday around!

I couldn't resist instagraming a few photos of the boys hard at work on their valentines

 Creed goes to preschool two days a week and two days a week we do a neighborhood preschool taught by the moms of the group so he'll know a few kids when he starts kindergarten next year.  Last minute the neighborhood preschool decided to do a valentine exchange so thank goodness I saw this free printable on Lily Jane Stationery and was able to throw these together the morning of. Their are only seven kids in teh group so it was nice to be able to do something a little special.

 Preschool handwriting is the sweetest!

 I happened to have bakers twine, craft paper, and red spoons on hand so we just picked up the tiny boxes of cereal and wrapped them up.

So simple and the kids all loved them.

Creed's Valentines

We wanted to give Creed's pre-school classmates something homemade.  I wanted it to be something simple that Creed could help me put together, and something that he would be excited to give to his classmates.

We started off picking up some little wedding favor boxes and some plastic dinosaurs that Creed thought his friends would like.

We took a picture of Creed pointing

 Then we photoshopped on (You are Dino-mite! Love, Creed).  I cute them out and Creed helped me tuck one in the bottom of each of the boxes.

Then he sorted all of the dinosaurs

 And he picked three to add to each box

 To make things easier, his teacher ask students not to address valentines so they can hand them out themselves (since they can't read) so we were done.

 We did tie up a few to deliver to other friends and we just added a little heart so we could label them.

We had so much fun sorting through all the valentines that Creed brought home.  Ah to be three again and have heart-shaped suckers and heart stickers make my day!  It's so fun to experience that again as a mom.

Valentine's Day Gets Sweeter When You Have More Than One Valentine

Our Valentine's Day celebration started at exactly 12:01 when Larry asked me if I wanted to open my present.  Yes, yes I did. So while the little ones slept, we exchanged gifts and basked in a few moments of adult conversation.  He got me a necklace that I didn't even know he knew I wanted.

After Larry fell asleep, I got up and tucked valentines all over the house for him.  He always lays his work clothes out the night before so I slipped a valentine in his pocket and was thoroughly amused the next morning by how long he wore those pants before he found it.

We decided not to go out on Valentine's Day (we would celebrate later, when there weren't as much of a crowd so we wouldn't have to leave Ollie long since it was out first time leaving him with anyone else in months).  I think we might continue celebrating that way because it was sweet to spend the whole day celebrating as a family.

My dad always gave us a valentine (he still does to this day).  Larry is carrying on the tradition and we loved Creed's reaction.

This crazy Valentine plays music and lights up and is now Creed's most treasured belonging.

Ollie will be thrilled one day too, but not today.

I gave Creed a little book and then we had breakfast together before Larry left for work (he usually wakes up and is long gone before the rest of us).  Creed and I spent the rest of the morning putting together his Valentines.

After dinner that night, we all got in our pajamas and watched Enchanted.  Years ago, I'm not sure I would have thought wearing pajamas and watching a kid's movie would the perfect ending to one of the most charming Valentine's Days ever, but it truly was.