Valentine's Day Fun

On Wednesday Ethan and Emmett celebrated Valentine's Day with Brayden, Zach, Carson, Cruz (and Traxton--though he was sleeping through it). As soon as Carson was dropped off after school the kids each ate a pink and white heart shaped sugar cookie. There are no pictures of these, because I swear they inhaled them. After washing it down with milk, they were allowed to have some Root Beer that Ethan and Emmett's great Uncle Bob dropped off for a special treat.


Next, the kids were each given a 1/4 cup of gummy bears to graph. Since they did the same thing in school this week with candy hearts, Carson was done before the rest even got started. Ethan and Brayden also did a great job and knew better than to eat too many (while I was watching that is).



Cruz and Emmett had a bit of harder time understanding the task set before them, but once they got started they did great! (Look at the concentration on their faces). I think Cruz sneaked the most gummy bears while he was working. He was anticipating those gummy treats all day. I didn't even bother giving Zach a graph, he was allowed to eat from the time I dropped those bears in front of him.

The next thing I did blows my mind every time I do it with these kids. It is the simplest thing that I have been doing for the past 3 years and they never outgrow it. Depending on the holiday I vary the shape of the paper, so yesterday it was hearts--just paper hearts. The kids played in the bedrooms while I hid paper hearts in the living room. When I said "ready" they came running out to find the hidden hearts. So much fun. They wanted to do it again and again and their anticipation made it almost impossible to keep them back in the room long enough to hide the hearts again.

Everything I made for the kids this year was themed around bears. Their Valentines said, "I think you are beary sweet." They were given bags with teddy grahams and gummy bears and it said, "Bear Hugs for ____ from Mommy/Missy." So, I made the kids bear shaped sugar cookies to take home, too. Well, they thought they were gingerbread men and wanted them to run away and hide in the house. About a year ago or so my mom and I coordinated a day where she came and helped me so the boys could decorate their own sugar cookie men. We put them in the pantry to rest while we ate lunch. During this time, my mom hid them in the spot I told her. The night previous I made up rhyming clues for a treasure hunt for them to go around the house finding the clues and eventually the cookies. So, yesterday Carson and Ethan wanted me to put the cookies in the pantry and see if they ran away again. Little do a 6 and 4 year old know that it took a lot of preparation the last time to do this fun activity. SO, thankfully, when April arrived she was able to hide the paper hearts while I quickly hid the cookies and wrote 1 note from the sugar-cookie bears. They were disappointed it was only one note and to top it off, it didn't even rhyme! (I tried to find a picture of this and failed.)