Will you be my Valentine?

My daughters are 4 and 6. Every year for Valentines, the cards my girls receive, and those given in years past, have been of the store bought variety. This year... we decided to do something a little different. 

First I should say that Family Fun magazine and Familyfun.com are my friend. I am always looking to those sources for ideas for birthday parties and rainy day crafty activities for my kids. I also get email ideas from them, and their Valentine's Day email caught my attention. Homemade Valentines! What a great idea! My girls love to color and cut and draw and write.

I found two ideas that involved pencils. Pencils can be found in the dollar section at Target. And usually they have pencils to match every holiday and season. My first grader found a great Owl card, and we picked a simpler Heart card for my preschooler. 

Now my preschooler LOVES letters, and she is always asking me how to spell a word so she can write it. She doesn't have a handle on HOW to write all 26 letters, but she still does a great job for her age. I guess I got a little over ambitious with her, having her write the entire message of her card. I wrote the message on a separate piece of paper and asked her to copy the message onto her card. She needed 7 for her class. She did 3 and she was done with the task. So for the remaining cards, I wrote the message and she signed her name and added a sticker.

My first grader absolutely loved making her Owls. We had three different messages: "You're a hoot", "I'll owl-ways be your friend", and "You're owl-right." And of course she wrote the messages herself. I helped her cut the head of each Owl and I punched the eyes.

We've decided that homemade Valentines are the way to go from here on out. And my first grader is already planning the theme for next year's cards.

"Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love." 1 Corinthians 13:13