My Three Valentine's

We started our Valentine's celebration on Monday with heart-shaped pancake making. Kennedy and I did this last year and she loved it so I figured, why not keep it going? Knowing I had to work on Tuesday, we elected to make our VDay pancakes on Monday. It was just as much fun this year. The child loves a cookie cutter!

Ta-Da! I'm not sure what she did more of - eating scraps or cutting out Valentine shapes.

My 2nd sweet little Valentine woke up right as we were wrapping up so I figured we'd share our creation with her. She LOVES pancakes.

clearly:

My overacheiving/alwaysorganized and onthe ball super thoughtful sisters sent Valentine's as they always do (I think I did it once *sigh*). Kennedy was super excited about finding out what was inside!

A little chef set: perfect for our afternoon of cake baking!

Oh yeah - no store bought stuff for Aunt C - it's HANDMADE. Love.it!

Precious!

I'm not a huge Valentine's person necessarily, but I feel like as a Mom I'm shaping how to feel/what to do for and with holidays. So...we talked a lot about how much we love Daddy and how Valentine's is just a day to do something special for those we love to let them know how much we love and appreciate them. So..she helped me make him a cake. There are never enough sprinkles to be  had for this little one, so his cake was SUPER decorated!

Kennedy thoughtfully picked out his card (seriously: we were in the card aisle at Kroger for sweet forever!) She figured out that the cards for Dad's had markers behind them that started with "D"...pretty observant I thought. I had to steer her away from the musical cards that are like $7 a piece (craziness) but she was pretty pleased with this one because when she opened it, it was almost as big as she is.  

She carefully and thoughtfully penned she and her sisters names inside the card.

As soon as dinner was over, she wanted her Daddy to try the cake! We managed to convince her to have bath time and get sister down for bed first.

Love this picture!

Tuesday morning when she woke up she came straight out to see if she'd gotten anything for Valentine's! Her Daddy delivered and she was really happy with all of her little gifts. I told him the night before that I didn't want him to set the bar insanely high, but that he was going to be the one who shaped her expectations for Valentine's Day (no pressure Dad) so he ran out to add some things to her card and I'm glad he did because I just wanted her to not only feel loved but special and a little spoiled on Valentine's Day. ;-)

He bought Avery a little Valentine's sock monkey and although you cant tell in these pictures - she had a big ole' grin on her face. It was too cute!

The girls were dressed alike for school on Tuesday (little secret: I washed their outfits on Monday night and the re-wore them on Tuesday). Tim was initially planning to drive to WV Monday night for work and was going to stay with his parents and take the girls with him, so I dressed the girls in their Valentine's outfits on Monday in case they weren't with me on Tuesday. Well, no trip on Monday so I washed and dried their outfits so they could be festive on the ACTUAL holiday at school. I snapped these pictures before taking them.

The ONLY way I could get them both to look and be still was by holding a singing card (from their Nana and Pawpaw) over my head. Oh the things we do as Mommy's! They LOVE these cards and have been playing with them ever since they arrived. I have some video of it which is HILARIOUS, but I'll have to share it another day because we are having some video upload issues. Here are some pictures of them playing with the cards after the picture taking was over.

Kennedy was really into making her Valentine's gifts for her classmates. She helped me with each step - we were like our own little assembly line.

There was fun dip included in her treat bags and she'd never had any so she really wanted to try some. Of course she selected the blue flavor - why do kids always want blue?!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Valentine's Day - I know we sure did. I sure am thankful for my three Valentine's!