The Five Days of Valentine

 {NOM}

Well howdy do, folks?  Long time no post!  Hahaha.  I tell ya -- having a baby and adjusting to life with 6 kids leaves VERY little spare time for blogging.  Which shouldn't be all that surprising, but it still makes me sad to think that our family record is not quite as recorded as it has been in times past.  But don't worry, I'm not giving up ENTIRELY on this whole blogging venture.  :)

This last week we celebrated our annual "Five Days of Valentine."  And yes, we have completely made up an extension to this traditional holiday of love.  And no, the kids did NOT fully realize until this year that not everyone celebrates for 5 days as well.  Hahahaha.  We didn't do anything super extravagant or exciting, but it was kind of fun this year to purposefully celebrate each of the five days.  I tried to have a token gift or activity for each of the days, and the kids ate it up!  

Before we got our family festivities on, we had to get school valentines ready to go.  And this year, I finally got around to procuring all the necessary supplies for some melted crayon hearts that I had found on Pinterest a couple of years ago.  While at Meijer a few weeks ago, I saw the PERFECT conversation heart silicone molds that I knew the kids would LOVE.  I had originally planned on Alex and Jane creating these Valentines for school, but Sophie liked them so much that she insisted {at bedtime, the night before they were due} on making them, too.  For the record, peeling crayons takes a LOT longer than you would think, and it definitely helps to have a couple extra hands.  And a sharp knife to cut the paper first.  They were pretty cool and the girls had fun making them, but I would have had more fun if we weren't so crunched for time in making them. 

 Jane and Sophie really enjoyed picking out the color combinations for each heart.

 "Color your heart out Valentine!"

 Using hot glue to attach the crayons was a little trickier than I was expecting.  The first couple of tries just melted the back of the crayon without sticking.  I eventually got the hang of it, and they worked out fine.

A quick recap of our 5 Days are as follows:

Day 1 (Wednesday, February 10th) -- Everyone got a box of conversation hearts.

Day 2 (Thursday, February 11th) -- We had a Family Movie Night complete with movie candy.  Since the kids had no school the next day, I thought it would be a fun surprise to pick up a Redbox movie and a variety of movie candy for the night.  We watched "Goosebumps" and sampled Hot Tamales, Mike & Ikes, Milk Duds, Rainbow Nerds, Whoppers, Swedish Fish, Sour Patch Kids, regular Twizzlers, and Pull n' Peel Twizzlers.  It was a hit!  Hahaha.

Day 3 (Friday, February 12th) -- Sugar Cookie Decorating!  Such a labor of love.  Hahaha.  For the record, a delicious sugar cookie is probably my very favorite cookie of all time.  But they are SUCH a pain to make.  Seriously.  Hours worth of labor, and then they're eaten in a mere fraction of the time.  Since the kids didn't have school, though, I figured it would give us something "fun" to do for the day.  In reality, it was stressful and time-consuming as I made two separate batches of cookies (regular ones using the recipe from Our Best Bites and vegan ones for Sophie) while trying to feed the baby and rock him to sleep, and referee the fights and freakouts amongst the older kids.  At the end of the day, however, it all worked out and the kids had fun decorating half the cookies with buttercream frosting and Valentine themed sprinkles while I slapped some glace icing on the other half.  Both versions were delicious.  I literally can't decide which ones I like better.

 So shiny!  So pretty!

Day 4 (Saturday, February 13th) -- I picked up some Gummy Life Savers in a plastic heart container for each kid.  :)

Day 5 (Valentine's Day, Sunday, February 14th) -- Scott picked up a bunch of treats to shower the kids with once we got home from church.

All in all, it was a smashing success!  :)  The fun was continued on into Monday, with a President's Day holiday from work and school.  Scott took the kids sledding in the morning with some friends from church, and then Mario Kart took over the rest of the day.  And my life.  Hahaha.  Seriously, though.  That game is the BANE of my existence right now.  It stirs up more contention and strife than anything else in the house and it's driving me nuts.  Not to mention, Alex is a raging addict.  I'm working on detoxing him this week.

Nevertheless, and in conclusion, life is still good.  I may be more tired than usual, and the house might be even messier and more chaotic than usual, but we're still alive and kicking.  And dreaming big for the future.  An epic, Great-American-style-Road-Trip out west, may or may not be in the works for this summer...

One last parting shot of Captain Adorable being adored by his big sisters.  :)