Letter V/ Valentine's Week

Last week we were supposed to talk about the letter V since it was Valentine's Day that week.  I wasn't quite as organized (busy getting ready for potty training at the end of the week) so I didn't even print out the letter V and post it on her board like I normally do with the letter of the week.  So this week the theme was really just Valentine's Day.  Here are a few activities we did throughout the week:

Valentine's Carnival

There was a Valentine's Carnival at Blodel Park last Sunday so the three of us went to that.  She had fun getting her face painted and doing some of the crafts and activities (although a lot of them were geared towards older kids.)  We stayed for about 30 min. and then enjoyed the nice day with a walk down on Taylor Dock.

 

Valentine's Cards

The plan was to make these cards for everyone in our family plus her friends.  I got this idea from Pinterest using red fingerprints to make hearts on the cards.  It was a messy disaster!  We only were able to make 3-4 cards.  She didn't want to just use one finger to make the hearts but instead she wanted to put her whole hand in the red ink and also use stamps.  By the time we made the few cards there was red ink all over the table, chairs, on her face and on the walls to the bathroom.  Luckily it was washable ink!!  So the cards didn't turn out as nice as those on Pinterest but it's the thought that counts.  Unfortunately we weren't able to make all the Valentine's we had planned to send everyone in our family and to all of her friends.  Oh well, that's the way it goes sometimes.

 

 

Heart Breakfasts & Lunches

 

For the week I used a bunch of small and large heart shaped cookie cutters on her food.  Wow!  I need to use cookie cutters with food more often!  She's normally not a big eater and picky but she ate anything that was shaped like a heart.  Here are a few of the meals she had (sorry not sure how to some rotate these photos):

 

Heart shaped peanut butter sandwich with red sprinkles in the middle, heart shaped watermelon slices and blueberries.

 

 



Heart shaped peanut butter toast with heart shaped watermelon slices and pineapple (heart shape didn't work well with pineapple). (Notice her placemat of all the US presidents.  Her favorite presidents to pick out are George Washington, Obama and "Teddy" Roosevelt.)

 

 

 

Heart shaped peanut butter sandwich with red sprinkles in the middle and heart shaped cucumber slices.

 

 

Mini heart shaped pancakes with heart shaped watermelon slices.

 

 

 

Heart Collage

 

I found this idea on Pinterest.  We had some red, pink and white tissue paper in our closet (yes I'm weird, I sometimes save tissue paper if it's in good shape and glad I did for this project.)  We tore it up into little pieces and placed it on a laminated pouch (on Pinterest they used contact paper but we have a laminating machine.)  Then I laminated the page, cut out a heart and hung it on our window.  She wasn't really into this activity so we only made one collage.  Instead she thought it was more fun to run around the house with the tissue paper and let her animal figurines play in it.  Some how most of our activities never go as planned but I don't worry about it.  The idea is to have fun so we adapt to how she would like to play.

 



 

 

Heart Sugar Cookies

 

On Valentine's Day I attempted to make heart shaped sugar cookies using a new recipe.  Bad idea!  I made the dough in the morning so it could chill for a couple hours before rolling out.  Not sure what I did wrong but the dough was all crumbly and I couldn't roll it.  So by the time I figured this out it was already 3:30pm and Riley was so excited to decorate the cookies.  So I ran to Haggen where they luckily had non decorated heart shaped sugar cookies (thank you Haggen!!).  Instead of chancing another cooking disaster by making my own icing, I decided to just buy some Betty Crocker vanilla icing.  We quickly came home and decorated the cookies using red sprinkles.  I think Riley had more fun eating the sprinkles than decorating the cookies.  By the time we were done it was a rush to meet Brian at Rudy's Pizza where we had a family Valentine's dinner.  Not romantic but it was a perfect Valentine's dinner to me.

 



 

 

 

On Valentine's Day morning she woke up to a giant heart balloon that played music (which I've been hearing all day long for the last week) and a little stuffed dog. 

 



 

Other Activities This Week

Storytime at the library
Music class which she seemed to like a little better this week
Skagit Children's Museum (for their monthly free day) and then visited Brian at work.  (below Riley at Brian's desk pretending to talk on the phone and work on the computer like Daddy)