Valentine's Day Cable style

Ok, so Valentines day can be a nightmare for cheapskate non-crafty, lazy mom's like myself. And to knock me when I'm already down, the school my kids attend are requesting non-cartoon/character driven valentines. Shoot, there go the Star Wars valentines my kids would have loved more than homeade crafty glitter ones. Oh, and yeh, one other thing, in the past their classes have just decorated bags in school to collect all their valentines. But this year, both classes requested homeade decorated shoeboxes. Now I actually have very fond memories of making these kind of boxes. But that was probably in like the 4th grade, and by a then artsy girl. Ugg, I don't even own shoeboxes thanks to my massive and random walk-in closet that has 12 drawers. So I would have had to gone out and bought wrapping paper, shoe boxes, and decor. And seeing as my kids don't know how to wrap yet, I would have had to do all that. So already your getting to my cheap and lazy. My first stop therefore was Hobby Lobby, and their brilliant all in one packaged craft kits, no brain required. My first aha moment there was the kits for valentine boxes, on sale for $3 a piece, yay!.I also picked up a Rice Krispie Valentine snack craft thing, cuz I'm one of those fun moms too :) And at Target I found non-character tacky valentines that came with suckers attached, candy always wins kids over, that and tatoos, but those were a$1 more, so nope. Ritch had to be gone most of Saturday, so that was going to be our fun Valentine preparation day. It started out with my pink buttermilk pancakes. Buttermilk pancakes are our Saturday morning ritual.

And here is how it went. Below you see an example of Cooper's Valentines. He can write all his letters and is beginning to read the basics, so I thought it would be nice for him to write his own valentines, oh how painful, it took forever and he wanted to give up with 4 left to go, thankfully there were only 14, not the 20 Parker had. I took a pic of two of his, one with stellar handwriting, one not so much, Julie spelt with a backward J, which is kinda cute, and for some reason he thought his name began with a G on this one.

This all while Sophie was taking a bath and I was going back and forth. Because doing Valentines with a Pre-K, a 2nd grader who is perfectionistic, and a 2 year old was carazy. So in the tub she went. Next we tackled the oh so cute boxes. I'll show you a pic, but then tell you the nightmare that they were.

Ok, can you tell these will hold maybe 3 valentines. They are tiny. Secondly a sneeze would knock these over because they are made with a paper that is one step above card-stock or construction paper. It also took a degree in engineering to assemble these (they started out flat). And they required double stick tape, which might be a staple in a crafty home, but not around here. Right away I knew this wasn't going to be a group project. They couldn't even decorate them post assembly because it required brads and double stick tape, so tonight while Ritchey cleaned up dinner, I made valentine boxes. I guess next year I'll just break down and do shoeboxes, because really I don't know what the boys are going to do once 3 valentines fill this box up.

Ritchey and I went out for our Valentine's date on Saturday night. We had so much fun, went to 3 different spots and ate all of our favorite yummy food. Including ending it at one of those yogurt spots where the toppings are endless and they charge by the ounce. It was worth it even though we were sick by the end of the night. We are both officially on diets now, for real. I left the Rice Krispy treat craft with the babysitter. She said it was kinda hard to do with the kids, so she just made them and let them decorate them. Oh, and on the side she makes cakes, so hers looked real nice.

And to end our fun Valentine weekend (it isn't even here yet!) I made heart shaped biscuts for our Sunday night breakfast dinner. Parker put on his most gangsta face, he even snapped his fingers when he took the picture.

Ritchey says I'm taken Valentines day a bit too far. But I am trying to compensate for my other failures I suppose. Oh, and I'll post a pic later after he opens it. But this year we are having a contest for whoever can find the tackiest card. Red velvet, Rhinestones and Sexy Devil written in flames, thats all I gotta say. Ok, well there ya go, Valentines Day Cable style.