valentine’s day

The Last Remaining Firsts

By my accounting, Chickadee has two last “first holidays” to celebrate before she turns one. They’re not even real holidays, like Easter (she was just under two and a half weeks old for her first Easter, so she was especially tiny for that “first!”), or Christmas, but celebratory days, just the same.

In less than a week, Chickadee will experience her first Valentine’s Day. Normally, this day is barely even on my radar, but I decided that this would be a special Valentine’s Day for two reasons. First, I agreed to prepare a special Valentine’s Day tea party for my children, which they’re very excited about. To be honest, I’m pretty excited about it, too! Second, Valentine’s Day happens to be on a Thursday this year, which is Chickadee’s regularly scheduled picture day, as she was born on a Thursday. Since I knew I’d be taking her weekly picture anyway, I figured this would be an appropriate way to mark one of her last first holidays:

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The other special day she’ll get to celebrate for the first time is St. Patrick’s Day. This probably sounds even stranger than celebrating Valentine’s Day, but St. Patrick’s Day is one of my five favorite holidays every year (yes, I have a list). Yes, it’s right up there with Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, and Independence Day. To be honest, I’m not sure where it falls on my list of five, but it could rank as high as favorite holiday number three…and I’m not even Irish! I love it anyway, though, and always make a big deal out of it at our house. So, of course, when I saw this on sale, I knew Chickadee “needed” it:

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You might notice that both of these outfits reference Daddy instead of the long-suffering Mommy. I’ve made my peace with it…after all, she insisted on saying Dada, and only Dada, for several months before she ever uttered Mama. It seems fitting that her special day shirts would reflect her unique, rather mischievous, personality!

Valentine’s Day

Over the last few years of homeschooling, we’ve made a few fun Valentine’s Day crafts. Of course, this doesn’t include the excessive number of actual Valentines we’ve also made…the children love giving cards to people, and they’ve made every variation of homemade Valentine that you can think of!

A fun mailbox to put our Valentine's in!

Valenswines

Beaded Valentine Hearts

Woven Heart "Basket"

"Sparkle Hug Critters"

I’ve also made several fun Valentine’s Day treats…two of which feature my favorite seasonal dessert–Funfetti! (We’ve also made and decorated heart-shaped sugar cookies on more than one occasion, but I couldn’t find any pictures of those. Trust me when I say there were lots of sprinkles involved!)

Cupcakes

Whoopie Pies

February 14–Valentine, Martyr

February 14th is usually recognized as a day for children to hand out cards to classmates and have parties at school, and for couples to exchange gifts and/or have romantic dinners. But Valentine’s Day originated as a church commemoration for St. Valentine, a doctor who was martyred in 270 AD. While there is certainly nothing wrong with a secular celebration of today’s holiday, it’s also good to remember the faithful believer for whom the day is named, and how God used him even while imprisoned, (as He did with many of the early apostles).

From the LCMS website:

A physician and priest living in Rome during the rule of the Emperor Claudius, Valentine become one of the noted martyrs of the third century. The commemoration of his death, which occurred in the year 270, became part of the calendar of remembrance in the early church of the West. Tradition suggests that on the day of his execution for his Christian faith, he left a note of encouragement for a child of his jailer written on an irregularly-shaped piece of paper. This greeting became a pattern for millions of written expressions of love and caring that now are the highlight of Valentine’s Day in many nations. 

School Update

I haven’t posted much about our homeschool lately, mostly because I’ve been really busy (can you imagine that?!?), but we’re still plugging away and learning a lot (even Mommy!).

In February, we had a field trip to our local fire station.  Turkey asked a great question there about the new rescue boat they had, and he, Bunny and Moose got to sit in a fire truck (we don’t trust Ladybug in a truck with that much power!).  Even as an adult, I’m amazed at how huge a fire truck is (especially the ladder truck) when you get up close to it, because you usually don’t get such a good view, and the children were just blown away by the size.  The firemen were very friendly, and they even had cookies and coloring books–we’re still using the latter in school to discuss fire safety.

We had a fun Valentine’s week, decorating a cardboard mailbox for all of our cards, making Valentines for the people in our family, stringing beads for hearts with daddy, and my personal favorite, making pink and red construction paper “Valen-swines” (just use your imagination–they were super cute!).  We also read some cute books–The Night Before Valentine’s Day, written in the same style as The Night Before Christmas, and Clifford’s Valentines.

The day before Ash Wednesday, we prepared for Lent by making Alleluia banners from construction paper, and decorating them with crayons and glitter.  We then put them away until Easter, when we can hang them up and proclaim “He is risen indeed! Alleluia!”  We tried foods from two different cultures that day as well, trying “packzi” in the morning (like a jelly filled donut, but richer, if you haven’t hear of them), and jambalaya for dinner that night.

February also brought our 100th day of school, which was a lot of fun!  We counted to 100, by ones, fives, and tens, we looked at 100 of different items (legos, pretzels, M&Ms, and Q-tips), and we had a special “100 cake” after dinner that night.  More proof that counting is fun!

March has been pretty quiet so far–we had some fun on St. Patrick’s day coloring shamrocks and doing mazes to help a Leprechaun find his gold, but we’re on “spring break” this week, so we didn’t do a big craft.  We are making coffee filter flowers for the first day of spring tomorrow, so that will be fun.

On a more serious note, fun holidays, trips, and craft projects aside, the actual “schooling” is coming along really well.  Their recall for Bible stories (as well as other stories) is amazing, Turkey’s printing is almost better than mine, and they’re both reading more and more…nothing is safe!  All of the sudden, they’re reading signs when we’re in the car. words in the TV Guide, more of their own books.  Adding and subtracting are being understood more and more, and counting is easy as can be.  I can’t believe how quickly and easily they learn, and how much they enjoy school!

I have some fun things planned for Easter, and I just got a new game to use in school–Sequence States and Capitals.  We haven’t played it yet, but I think it will be very helpful in learning what each state looks like, and the names of each state and capital.  More to come on that, I’m sure, after we’ve had some opportunities to play it.