Happy Valentine's Day (phew, we finished!)

Over the last couple of years, a funny phenomenon has developed in my house around Valentine's Day (and I must admit that I would have thought the opposite would happen).  

Let me explain...when I would ask my sons if they wanted handmade Valentines, they would (very politely because I think they thought they'd hurt my feelings!) tell me that they wanted to pick ones out from the store - usually in the theme of whatever action figure they were into at the time (Batman, Superman etc.).  But in the last few years as they have gotten older, the same question was met with YES, PLEASE, and they would even take an active part in the process choosing what stamps they wanted to incorporate.  I would have thought as they got older they'd want something more like everyone else, but I'm really touched that they now always want to give ones out that we made.  So here is this year's... (ta-da!)  

Lawrence chose the Martian Valentine, which we made from the tried and true Lizzie Anne Designs set, Out of this World (seriously this set has gotten SO much use in a house with 3 boys).  He liked the traditional card that you can buy in the store, so using Heather's template, I made his.  And Alex and Mattew chose dinosaurs and dogs - both made from the fun new set, Tiny Treats: Valentine, which was released last month at PTI.  All the Valentines treats were packaged in a pillow box that I found on this wonderful blog,  the Frugal Crafter, which (thankfully) I was able to cut out on my new Cricut using the SCAL software.  On a sidenote, my Cricut Expression is AWESOME and with the SCAL software, is such a huge timesaver.  There is no way I would have had the time patience or time to create these Valentines without my Critcut, between the packaging and the medallion I used on the Alex and Matthew's Valentines.  And it is such a breeze to use, I might add, which is a BONUS.  

Anyways, back to the Valentines making process...

For such a big (well, at least for me) project, I made the Valentines in an assembly line style.  I had the boys jump in to sign their Valentines before the final step in the assembly (I went ahead and signed Matthew's cards).  It was a fun process and we finished on time.  Although we actually haven't had the party yet given the over hte foot of snow that was dumped on us here this past week.  The boys are in the middle of an extra long President's Holiday, having gotten an extra 2 days off due to the snow.  My office was even closed one of those days, which was a first!  Hopefully we'll be able to re-schedule the parties (I'm one of the class moms for both Lawrence and Alex's classes). 

Well, Happy Valentine's Day!  We're just relaxing and spending the day together, which to me is a perfect way to spend the day with the people I love. :)