Valentine's Day

We are not big Valentine's Day people. I think that, if I was going to pick a day for Justin and I to celebrate our love with gifts and dinners and cards and candy, I'd much rather celebrate on our wedding anniversary. However, I do think Valentine's Day is a fun day to celebrate with my kids. We actually did the majority of our Valentine's Day celebrating on Friday. We started out with a special Valentine's Day breakfast in Clayton's classroom:
Clayton showing off the Valentine's shirt I made him (don't look too closely at it - so many flaws!!):
Eating a pumpkin muffin. They went ALL OUT for this breakfast! Pumpkin muffins, ham and cheese scones (yum), chocolate chip scones, an amazing raspberry danish, chocolate covered strawberries, etc. I was so surprised (I was expecting bagels and juice).
I just thought this was funny. Clayton is NOT an artist. He has no desire to color, draw, cut, or paint. He just doesn't like it. Never has. He's much more of a techinical/logical thinker. He likes to solve problems and see how things work. Not much of a creative streak with this kid. Years ago I used to compare his lack of artistic drive with other kids his age and I'd feel sad that all these other kids were drawing these amazing pictures while my kid would put one red line down the center of a paper and call it a day. I've since realized that Clayton has many other talents and interests and art isn't one of them. I've stopped comparing him to other kids, but when I went to his class on Valentine's Day, I had to laugh at the comparisons I saw:
All 15 of the kids Valentine's bags were lined up in a row and Clayton's was BY FAR the least decorated. I asked him, 'Why didn't you decorate your bag?' His classic response (eye roll), 'Mom, I wrote LOVE on it.' (DUH!)
Every month the kids have to draw a self portrait of themselves. At the end of the year we're going to get them in a portfolio to see how they've grown as artists over the course of the year. I'm a little sad to say that this is an improvement. It's not that he can't color in the lines. He just doesn't want to take the time to do it. There are other things he'd rather do. So, while the other kids spend about 10 minutes making their self-portrait, Clayton spends 30 seconds. He doesn't actually think he looks like a monster. I about shot orange juice out of my nose when I saw this. Funny. Classic Clayton!
After the breakfast, Noah, Josie, and I got ready for a Valentine's party with our regular Friday playgroup.
One of my favorite things about holidays is dressing up for it. I thought the kids were super cute in their Valentine's outfits:
I couldn't find anything cute and Valentinesy for boys this year so I just went ahead and took red shirts that they already owned, some fabric that I happened to already have and - voila - 'manly' Valentine's Day shirts (again, don't look too closely):


Josie was a different story! There are, of course, countless cute things for girls to wear for Valentine's Day. I found this cute outfit for a STEAL at Gymboree and couldn't resist:
BTW - she's so close to walking. She can do it, she just needs to gather the courage to do it on her own. So close!!

There were so many fun things to do at the party. The kids decorated Valentine's bags (Noah loves this so much more than Clayton), listened to Valentine stories, ate a yummy lunch, decorated sugar cookies, and passed out their Valentine's. Here are a few pictures:
Noah decorating his sugar cookie:
He loved it!
Me and one of my four favorite Valentines! (Gotta love that happy, messy face!)
Cute Josie.
She discovered a pickle sitting abandoned on someone's plate and thought it looked delicious!
I was dying laughing! She kept making the most sour face, but she was determined to eat that pickle! (Eventually I traded her pickle for a sugar cookie, which she was very happy about.)
On Sunday, we had a relaxing, no-big-deal Valentine's Day. I gave my guys chocolate hearts from our favorite chocolate shop - Lake Champlain Chocolates - and was given the BEST gifts ever by Justin. He let me take a nice nap and he did the dinner dishes for me. SWEET!

It was a pretty nice couple of days. I'm sure lucky I have so many wonderful Valentines in my life!