valentines 2010

eve's partially finished finger puppets

the making began on our snow day wednesday and finished up a few minutes after bedtime thursday night. not the fastest valentines but easy and funny.

eve and ruth drew the hearts, i got busy cutting those hearts out and attaching them to the finger tubes, while the girls got busy turning the hearts into faces. ruth's process was simple; separate puppets into two piles (one for boys, one for girls), draw eyelashes on the girls and draw regular eyes on the boys. adding a little lipstick here and there, she was done with her 20 faces in no time. eve, however, went custom.. the boy who likes sharks got a shark-faced heart, the boy who makes everyone laugh by pretending to be a pig got a pig face. the girl who loves being fancy got a crown.. and on and on until all 25 of hers were complete. we threw on a little of eve's pretty tape to fancy them up (from christmas- office supplies were her main gift), and they were done.

to make sure all the friends knew exactly what they were getting (motherly nightmarish images of eve and ruth staring on, horrified, as their friends tore the puppets to bits looking for candy), rough silhouettes of each girl's hand were printed on cardstock, the outline of the first finger cut with an x-acto knife, and puppets slid over mr. pointer. unmistakeable heart finger puppet spreading valentine cheer.

addressed by little hands and sent off to school, these were, by all reports from little friends, received very well. good news.. it feels a little bit like we're pushing our luck with these candy-less valentines.. but happily pre-k-ers and kindergarteners can appreciate a lot even if they aren't packed with sugar. like the bookmark that eve got from a friend "you know, mom, it's really cool. it's the kind of thing from back in the olden days, like the 80's or 90's. like back from when before you were 50.." (i'm 30).

hope everyone had a lovely valentine's day! and for those celebrating president's day tomorrow, do yourself a favor and make this log cabin cake in honor of honest abe. i push the cake every year, but i'm pretty sure you won't regret it.. we never do.

snow day 2010

we set up camp in the family room, watched movies, made pizza, danced, played trains and ate marshmallows. but the very best part of the day was the 17 minutes we spent out in the blizzard. is there anything better than a snow day? even now, as the mom, the thrill of getting out of school makes me as giddy as ever. maybe a snow day isn't pure freedom, but it has always felt like it to me.

valentines past

i'm putting a hold on my attempts to get decent shots of the girls' journals until i can get myself home during the forty minute slot when it isn't dismally dark in our place.. winter..

instead, here's a little reminder of what we did to festivate (that's right) valentine's day last year:

felt headbands for the girls and felt bracelets for friends.

looks like i've got some headbands to find and some figuring to do. we're a last minute kind of crew around here, so even though we don't have anything in the works right now, i imagine by the time we run out the door friday morning we'll have something fun to give to the people we love (or at least like okay).. a big snowstorm is supposed to come in tonight. i'm already planning on having everyone home tomorrow to drink hot chocolate and hatch a scheme for our valentine's day fun. if nothing else, we'll draw some hearts, tape them to a big stack of starbursts and call it true love.