last minute valentines

I know it's March, but this blog is like our family scrapbook.  We've used it to reminisce and for school projects...instead of searching loads of digital pictures, we simply search the blog.  So in that spirit, I'm late sharing our valentines.

Two of the kids have aged out of valentines.  And one of those was pretty bummed about that.  Can you guess who?

But Diego still needed to make 22.  And Carmen also had to make 17.  And then, literally on the day of my own class's party, I decided to make 18 for my two-year-olds.  What kind of teacher doesn't give valentines to her own class?

Carmen's were a two step process.  She had painted some red, purple, and pink circles all over some paper for fun one day.  I decided to cut that into hearts and then drew these cute little bears to deliver them.  These are the same bears that were at her first birthday.

Diego's valentines were a little harder.  Our first idea bombed.  I had printed off some from the internet, and all he had to do was write his name and who they were to.  I had left it all out on the table for him to do while I was at work, and he did.  But when I got home, I saw that he had written his name in the "to:" spot.  What?  I just couldn't have him give those out.  Plus, we decided we didn't like them that much.  

Plan B.

The same ninjas Joaquin had made in fifth grade.  But we didn't have the time to draw and color all of those at 7pm the night before.  And brilliant Isabela simply offered, "You could make a stamp."

And so we did.

Using craft foam, I just cut it out a ninja shape and pressed it onto our ink pad.  I traced it, Diego wrote who it was to and Daddy cut the slits for the fighting stick.  With that team effort, we knocked them out just a little past bedtime.

And then the next morning, I had Carmen paint her hand  blue 18 times! Pete the Cat is my class's favorite book right now so I was pretty sure these would be a hit.  I ended up writing, "It's all good, valentine!" on them, and they were finished at school by party time. 

 Whew!  For a brief minute, I hated valentine's day.  But then they were finished, and we were all in love again.  

We'll try not to wait so long next year.

ps.  It was Joaquin that was bummed about not making valentines this year!  I told him to make them for family and send them out.  Did you get one in the mail?  I guess he didn't go for that.