My goodness we cut things close this year. I’m not sure what happened… We had our idea weeks ago, our supplies were picked up in plenty of time, and somehow we started making Miss G’s class valentines just this evening. The night before Valentine’s Day. Oops.
When Miss G was just a teeny tiny fuzzy-headed 5 month old, we began the tradition of having some mama and munchkin friends over for a Valentine’s tea. It was nothing fancy… Just some coffee, tea, treats, and little cuties rolling around on a carpet while us moms chatted over cups of caffeine. After that first tea, we took the tradition home to Canada with us where the tea became more about mamas chasing their busy-bodied toddlers and less about visiting while sipping hot cups of coffee, but we loved it just the same {2012 | 2013}.
Well, today we hosted our fifth annual mamas and munchkins Valentine’s tea {hard to believe that’s even possible!}, which means we’ve officially had more of these little celebrations here in Kuwait than at home in Canada {sort of crazy also}. Sadly, Miss G woke up with a nasty cough yesterday and despite my willing it to disappear overnight, it didn’t. She woke up sicker than ever this morning, but that didn’t stop her from wanting to go through with the tea, of course. Luckily, I had messaged all of the moms yesterday to give them a heads up, and since almost all of Grae’s friends go to nursery or school and are exposed to sick germs daily, they still wanted to come {woohoo – what a sad tea it would have been with just the two of us!}
While I usually tutor four afternoons / evenings a week, I took this week off and it’s been lovely. More than anything, it’s allowed Grae and I some quality time at home in the afternoons, which has been really nice. As a result, we’ve been doing all sorts of fun little spur of the moment activities and projects, which is exactly what this broken hearts number matching activity is.
When I asked Gracen what she’d kind of valentines she’d like to make for her friends this year, she quite surely responded with ‘Something fun with glow sticks!’, which is how our glow stick heart and arrow valentines came about.
This little project totally came about on a whim this morning while Miss G and I were hanging out at home, but I think it turned out adorably and Grae had a blast making her washi tape heart art piece, so I’m calling it a win. Not to mention that the project is great for building fine motor skills too, so double win.
With nowhere to be this morning, Miss G and I declared it a pancake day. Her request? Making them heart-shaped. {Why not, right?} We whipped up a batch of our usual wholewheat flax and oat pancake batter and attempted to make it pink with the addition of beet juice. It didn’t work the way I was hoping it would {or at all really}, but oh well! We put our batter into the same squeeze bottle we use when we make spiderweb pancakes, and then simply created heart-shaped outlines and filled them in.
There’s no doubt that we love play dough. In fact, we’ve given it out as gifts and favours several times before. But that being said, I can’t take any credit for these sweet, simple little Valentine’s Day treats…
One of the little activities I set up for Miss and her friends to enjoy at our Valentine’s tea was this sticky wall colour matching game. The idea came from No Time for Flashcards (an amazing activity resource for kids of all ages) and although I followed Allison‘s instructions pretty closely, I made a couple of little changes along the way.
Needed for the project was construction paper in rainbow colours, a heart-shaped paper punch, permanent markers in coordinating rainbow colours, and clear contact paper {which can be purchased at dollar stores and home hardware stores}.
First off, I punched out tons of hearts and mixed them up really well in order to make the activity more challenging.
Next, I rolled the contact paper out on the floor (paper backing side down) and drew rainbow-coloured hearts inside one another on the non-sticky side of the contact paper (using permanent markers for this part is key).
The following morning I peeled the paper off of the corners, and taped the sheet up to the wall before peeling the entire backing off. As you can see, I attempted to make it look cute by taping it to the wall with my black and white polka dotted washi tape, but it simply didn’t cut it. The ugly masking tape had to be brought out, but it worked perfectly.
When Miss G’s little friends came over, they began popping up the hearts all over the place {somewhat to Grae’s dismay}. And though most of them didn’t get put in the ‘correct’ places, they had a lot of fun with it. In fact, at one point I think we had 3 toddlers pressing their faces onto the sticky wall and slowly pulling them away before sticking them back on again. ☺
Of course, once everyone had gone, she got straight to fixing things. The beauty about contact paper is that the paper hearts can easily be removed and reattached if need be.
Grae worked hard on her project for a good long while and it’ll stay up for the next while for her to revisit when desired, which I know will be often.
♥
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A little tradition we started back when Gracen was just 5 months old and we were living in Kuwait is an annual Valentine’s tea. Today we hosted our third celebration with a bunch of Grae’s good buddies, some awesome mamas, delicious treats, and some messy fun. The sun was shining, us mamas got to sneak in conversations in between chasing toddlers, and the kiddos played happily.
Here are some snapshots from our morning…
Tea.
Heart-shaped pretzels made especially for us by SweetSalt.
Banana berry muffins {adapted from this recipe}.
Mmmm… Fruit.
Strawberry crispy hearts.
Hearts.
Treats for the mamas.
Tea for toddlers.
Berry-scented play dough.
Hard at play.
Water bead fun.
Aftermath.
Crafting.
A happy girl post-party.
Kind of crazy that we’ve had two teas here in Vancouver and next year we’ll be back to where it all started, but I’m looking forward to it.
Take a peek at last year’s tea here.
♥
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Breakfast // Heart-shaped wholewheat flax oat pancakes with a tiny drizzle of pure maple syrup. Strawberry hearts.
Special drink // Frothy strawberry milk (made with freeze-dried strawberries) with heart-shaped milk ice cubes.
Lunch // Veggie and wild rice soup with heart-shaped carrots (aka “love soup” according to Grae).
Dinner // Roasted veggie and feta pizza on a thin wholewheat crust.
With a Valentine’s party earlier this week, and our annual Valentine’s tea happening tomorrow, when Miss G asked to have a special day at home today instead of attending our Valentine’s celebration at Strong Start, I was more than happy to oblige. It was a day of cooking together and doing special activities, topped off with a few hand-picked gifts for each of us at the end of the day.
Here is our day in photos…
Little breakfast helper.
A breakfast full of hearts.
A special drink.
Jello play dough experiment.
Play time.
A special project for Papa.
“Love soup”.
Proud.
Papa’s pizza topping.
Heart-shaped bacon warrants a regular rectangular pizza.
Regular roasted veggies means the pizza needs to be heart-shaped.
Finishing off the day with a few little gifts. A beautiful picture frame and some David’s Tea goodies for Papa, Fauberg macarons for Mama, and a handmade purse, a new book, and some scented stickers for Miss G.
Check out last year’s Valentine’s Day with my little lady here.
♥
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I must admit, since creating our first batch of healthy{er} crispy rice treats, we’ve made several batches since. The good news is that through all of the ‘testing’, we’ve learned that they last really well in an airtight container on the counter, they can be made into fun shapes using silicon moulds and ice cube trays, and they can easily be cut into shapes with cookie cutters {all while holding their shape just as well as regular Rice Krispie treats do}. The one lesson we’ve learned along the way is that if you overdo the cereal, they turn out crunchier, more dry, and not nearly as yummy. Lesson learned.
When planning some of the treats we’d serve at our annual Valentine’s Tea, Gracen’s most enthusiastic suggestion was “Crispy treats! Valem-time ones!” Making the treats pink came to mind first, but since I’m not crazy about feeding Miss G a bunch of unnecessary food dyes, that got nixed shortly there after.
The next thing that came to mind was one of Grae’s favourite treats… Freeze-dried strawberries. We buy ours at Trader Joe’s, but I have seen them in other stores as well. They’re just strawberries, but the process of freeze-drying them causes them to be super crunchy and astronaut food-like.
I asked Grae if she’d like to experiment with making strawberry crispy rice treats, and she was on board all the way.
To get started, we took about a half a cup of freeze-dried strawberries, ground them to a powder in our food processor, and added them to the wet mixture while following our usual crispy rice treat recipe.
Of course, Miss G licked the cashew butter spoon, because, well… That’s probably the best part about helping with this recipe.
Once we’d combined the cereal and the wet mixture, we took another portion of freeze-dried strawberries, crumbled half into the mixture itself, and then sprinkled the other half on top of the mixture after pressing it down firmly on a baking sheet.
We let the mixture cool completely, then used a cookie cutter to cut out heart-shaped treats. Miss G liked helping with this job, but it required some serious muscle, so I had to help out.
It’s a simple twist, but so far the feedback’s been great… Strawberry crispy treat success! ☺
Healthier Crispy Rice Treats
Measure the brown rice syrup, cashew butter, ground freeze-dried strawberries, and maple syrup into a large pot. Warm over medium heat, stirring almost constantly. When the mixture is hot and liquidy (but not bubbling), add the vanilla, give it another quick stir, and remove the pot from the heat.
Add in the crispy rice cereal and mix well to ensure the cereal is evenly coated with the sticky mixture. Next, add in a 1/4 cup of the crumbled strawberries and stir to distribute them evenly.
Dump the mixture onto a parchment-line baking pan and press it down firmly. Sprinkle the remaining 1/4 cup of freeze-dried strawberries on top of the mixture, and gently press them down into place.
Allow the mixture to cool completely (or almost completely). Use a cookie cutter to cut out heart-shaped treats.
Enjoy!
♥
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Today, while enjoying some downtime together as a family, I put together a quick and easy sugar cookie felt board set for Miss G… A sugar cookie cutting and decorating set. All it really required was a few sheets of the cheap {recycled from plastic bottles} felt, a pair of sharp scissors, a plastic cookie cutter, and about 40 minutes of {interrupted} time. Because Valentine’s Day is coming up, I went with a heart-shaped cutter, but any shape would be fun.
To start off, I traced the cookie cutter onto the tan felt several times, placing them as I’d cut out cookies from rolled dough (making sure to leave a decent amount of space between each). The only tricky thing is that in order to keep your ‘rolled dough’ piece intact, you have to very carefully cut the shapes out without cutting through the borders.
Here’s what you should have when your shapes have all been cut out.
Then I quickly rounded the edges to make the rolled dough piece look a little bit more realistic.
Next, I cut out smaller hearts in different colours (and two sizes) to act as the frosting.
The last {and easiest} job was creating ‘candy sprinkles’ by chopping up thin strips of felt.
Miss was dying to get her hands on her new game, and began placing the cookies into the dough immediately.
Then it was straight to cutting them out using her cookie cutter.
Next up – the best part… Decorating!
Almost as much fun as the real thing… If only felt cookies tasted delicious. ☺
You can find our easy and inexpensive felt board tutorial here and some of our other felt board games here.
♥
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After putting together our ‘Will you be my Valen-slime?’ favours this afternoon, Miss G and I got out a few things and put together a really simple Valentine-themed slime sensory tray.
Slime is just one of those things that never gets old. Miss G’s spent quite a lot of time playing with it in the past, but was every bit as thrilled to play with it again today.
Her favourite part of today’s set up was definitely the heart-shaped cookie cutters. She’d imprint a bunch of hearts, watch them slowly melt away, and then loudly exclaim, “MAMA! THEY DISAPPEARED!!” before making more.
My favourite part was that because this batch turned out just a tad firmer than our last, there was zero mess. It didn’t stick to her hands, it didn’t goop up the bowls and kitchen utensils, and it didn’t cling to her clothes. (A seemingly messy activity sans the mess = win!)
We left this out for most of the afternoon and evening, and Miss G came back to it again and again before it finally had to be sealed up just before dinner. But before that happened, she wanted a guarantee that her tray and container of slime would be left out and ready for her to enjoy first thing the next morning.
