Time for Valentine’s!

We are heading home from Maine with one child fewer.  Julius is spending February vacation skiing with my parents.  He is doing an amazing job skiing.  Yesterday we went down two blue runs and he did great.  When Patricia found out Julius was staying in Maine she was filled with grief.  She was both upset she didn’t get to stay and that Julius wasn’t going to be home to play with her.  It is adorable watching he two of them play together.  Before we left for Maine I wrote down a few snippets of their morning imagination games…

Julius and Patricia started playing a game where the floor is lava. Julius laboriously helps hoist Patricia onto the couch.  After she’s settled in the couch they introduce themselves, “hi im Julioso.” “Hi I’m Jon. I’m a girl.”

Later Patricia says “let’s play princesses and knights!” (This is a game they play A LOT.)  Julius replies, “I want to keep playing this game.” Patricia graciously defers, “oh yes we will play after this one!”

Several minutes later…

Julius: “Princess Odd is getting arrested!”

Still later…

Julius: “Patricia the roof is on fire!”

Julius having a ski waffle break.

For Valentine’s day I made the kids stuffies (I’ve been learning to crochet) and a box of homemade truffles (I had a truffle making ladies’ night).  We had cheese fondue with bread, carrots and apples for dinner followed by chocolate lava cakes with ice cream for dessert.  The kids opened all their Valentines from classmates after dinner. I was surprised by the number of cards that were printed out at home!  Definitely less store bought ones this year.  My cards fit right in!

Valentine’s dinner

Look at my 3 Valentine’s!

This week I’ll show you the ones I made for Julius’s classmates.  At Target’s after Christmas sale I found these cute mini wooden handled rubber spatulas in red and pink.  They were $.10 each!!!  I thought immediately that they would be perfect for Julius’s Valentines.  He loves to cook (or at least read cookbooks).  So I thought we could give the spatulas with little packets of mix for mug cakes.  Then I found out that the entire school district has a no food gifts policy… so we decided to just give the recipe for the mug cakes with the spatula.

Julius still loves sharks so I sketched a shark with a chef hat for his cards.  I’ve never seen a shark with a chef hat but I’m kind of obsessed and I think they came out really cute!  And my puns are only mediocre this year not bad.  (Okay I may be wrong there.)  Anyway, I have the document below if you want to make some next year.

Shark Valentine’s!!

Chef Shark Valentines

What you’ll need:

• White 65lb cardstock
• Color printer
• Paper cutter
• Xacto knife
• Small rubber spatulas

1. Print front of cards.
2. Insert paper with printed fronts back into the printer (this may take some time to figure out for your individual printer so make sure you do a test page with scrap).
3. Cut paper into 4 sheets 4.25″x5.5″ wide using a paper cutter.
4. On a piece of scrap cardboard place a one card (shark side up).  Using the xacto knife slice a 1.25″ cut at an angle above his fin.
5. Slice another cut parallel and 3/4″ below that (below his fin).
6. Remove the top on the spatula and carefully insert the spatula into the slot you made.  (Julius helped with this).  Replace spatula
7. Address and hand out!
   

   Julius addressing his Valentine’s.