Making Valentine's Day Special For Our Kids

Due to the excitement and insistence of Isabelle, all of our kiddos are ridiculously excited for Valentine's Day. This excitement is rather contagious and has my mind spinning with all kinds of possible ways to celebrate the day as a family.

In previous years we really haven't done much to celebrate Valentine's Day. Eric and I have never been ones to make a huge deal of the holiday. In fact, we don't even exchange gifts or even cards or chocolate. Instead, we choose to celebrate simply by just enjoying some special quality time together. For us, that makes a wonderful Valentine's Day.

But this year, largely because of the anticipation of the kids (and partially because of all the wonderful encouragement and inspiration that's part of the "Valentine's Exchange of Inspiration and Ideas), we're making it a bigger deal. Fortunately, all of our children find immense enjoyment in simple things, just like Eric and I. This will help to keep our Valentine's Day frugal and fun.

Here are a few of our plans:

• We are going to make some large envelopes for each of us to hang on our wall and all day Friday and Saturday, we'll leave little notes for each other.
  
• We're going to make some sugar cookies or cupcakes and frost them with pink frosting. Then we'll decorate them with conversation hearts and red sugar.
• We'll print out some coloring and activity pages from here and here. We'll color them on Thursday and hang them up on our walls and in our windows.
• We are going to create Valentine's Day cards the old-fashioned way (construction paper, doilies, ribbons, etc.) to mail to family and friends, as well as to deliver to our neighbors (along with a cookie or cupcake).
  
• We'll play some of these games before dinner on Saturday night.
• We will not be buying a lot of candy. Instead, we will buy one small heart-shaped box of chocolates that we can all enjoy and savor together in one sitting.
• We'll be eating fun and special Valentine's meals throughout the day.
  

Helping our children to celebrate Valentine's day in a big way, while still keeping it simple and frugal, definitely works for me!

Stop by Shannon's blog for more Works For Me Wednesday.

And don't forget to follow along with A Valentine's Exchange of Inspiration & Ideas all week. Here's the line-up:

• Monday: I share some Valentine-y meal ideas right here.
• Tuesday: Laura hosts a special Gratituesday about things we love to be thankful for at Heavenly Homemakers.
• Wednesday: JessieLeigh shares fun ways to celebrate Valentine’s Day with little ones at Parenting the Tiniest of Miracles.
• Thursday: Jessica hosts a Recipe for your Sweetie Swap over at Life as MOM.
• Friday: Amy rounds out the week with a special Finer Valentine Things Friday at The Finer Things in Life.

Also, check out this fabulous giveaway that our Valentine's hostess JessieLeigh is offering. Entering the giveaway is simple - just leave comments each day at the appropriate host blog. We'll be pooling all of the comments to select a winner. Leave a comment at each of our posts and receive 5 entries!