Our Valentines 2013

Dear Em,
We...ok, I...may have gone a little overboard with our Valentines this year. It's just that when I thought back to last year's Valentines, it made me sad to think that this year wouldn't be as fun. So, I started planning... in December.

I was at my parent's house leafing through the Oriental Trading magazines, when I found so many fun ideas. You're a fan of owls, & there were tons of fun owl Valentine ideas. I just couldn't pick one. Soooo, I didn't.

The first part of your Valentines I ordered from Oriental Trading Company. They weren't expensive & were easy to assemble. We didn't even have to use glue for the most part. Each foam piece was sticky when you peeled away the paper backing. I liked that you could work on them independently. Although, with your class-size being as big as it is, I helped out. We also spread out the crafting over two days in order to avoid overwhelming you.

By the end of the second day, you ran & hid every time I mentioned the word Valentine. At least we had a bunch of wicked cute owl bags.

That was about when I realized, I may have over estimated your love of making Valentines. You see, I found the most adorable owls (also in an Oriental Trading catalogue). Did I keep things simple & also order them when I ordered the bags? Nope, I decided I could save money & we could easily create them ourselves. Except that they weren't easy to create ourselves (doable, but not easy), & they weren't exactly a child-friendly craft.

Some mommies may have decided at that moment to scale back & keep it simple. Apparently, I am not one of those mommies. For me, it was too late, I was already committed to my plan. I'm embarrassed to admit I may have created the second part of your Valentines myself.

These are the materials needed for each little owl:

- 1 head (I just kind of free hand drew one & then traced 36 more...yup, I made 36 of these bad boys)

- 1 circle for the belly (I used a tupperware container & traced)

- 1 golden cone for the beak

- 2 brown wings

- 2 blue circles for the eyes

- 2 google eyes

- 2 gold hearts for the feet (I used a heart puncher to make these)

- 1 heart doiley for the belly

- 1 Valentine message in the shape of a heart (I printed messages I typed out & also used the heart punchers for this)

Since you weren't feeling like helping me anyway, I used the glue gun to glue everything together. Voila! 36 adorable little Valentine owls.

If I didn't love them so much, I would hate myself for taking on such a child unfriendly craft.

We weren't done yet. Since you had so much fun helping me bake Christmas sugar cookies & I remembered all of the heart shape cookie cutters we own, I thought it would be fun to bake Valentine cookies to put in your owl bags. Your classroom is nut-free & I figured nut-free baking would be easier than finding nut-free candy anyway. We're going to bake them tonight, & I hope your little friends & amazing teachers love their handmade Valentines tomorrow.

Also, I promise that'll we'll pick out a 4-year-old friendly project next year...well, at least I promise to try.

I love you so,

Mommy