Week 21 and a Jumping Valentine Party

We had a super fun Valentine week....or shall I say month.  Starting on Febuary 1st Rose woke up to a new heart on her bedroom door each morning.  The first day she had 2 hearts, one said "Rose, there are so many things that I LOVE about you...".  The second said "I love that you so freely help others."  Then, each morning she saw a new heart with a new message.  

She really enjoyed this!  It was nice to express my love for her in this way.  

I got the idea from somewhere on Pinterest or blogland but changed it from 'I love you, because...' to listing things I love about her.  It is a little change but an important one.  I don't love her "because" of these reasons....I just happen to love all things about her.  

We enjoyed many Valentine themed meals this week.  One was pizza with heart pepperonis...

On Valentine morning Rose woke to a note saying "look under the tv in the living room."  There, she found some small gifts.  hula hoops, purple tumbler, purple sock monkey, paddle ball, etc...

My flowers from Chad were beautiful.

Dessert on Valentine's Day was pudding.  We each had our own topping.  Rose chose frozen blueberries.  Chad had chocolate chips.  I picked Frozen strawberries and chocolate chips.  Yum.

The highlight of the week was Friday afternoon at a bouncy place, Pump It Up.  We joined 80 homeschool kids for a fun time jumping and exchanging Valentine Cards.  

 At home, Rose, sorting her Valentine loot...

On Saturday, daddy, mommy, and Rose went to the Discovery childrens museum.  We saw Captain Jack Sparerib's comedy show, did some crafts, and explored the museum.

Yes, we had a full week of school as well.  We learned more about the Middle East.  In one of our readings Rose was shocked to learn that it is illegal to be a Christian in Saudi Arabia.  We learned about endangered species and extinctions.  Rose is learning complex subjects and predicates and some basic sentence diagramming.  She can label all the countries in North, Central, and now South America with ease.  She is progressing nicely.

Hosting a Valentine's Banquet

The Sunday evening before Valentine's Day, we hosted our church's assembly and turned it into a Valentine banquet theme. 

Here are our decorations.  We had hearts, streamers, and various other Valentine themed things on the walls.  Some Valentine theme slides and music playing on the TV.  Pink cushions (that all were previously made by Rose, if you remember from Here and Here) on the couch.  Rose enjoyed putting Valentine window clings on the windows.  We had tissue paper flowers, which you know I love (as I talked about Here).

Rose really enjoys Valentines day so I tried to make it extra special.  Thanks to Pinterest we had some help. We made some gorgeous heart shaped cupcakes. (from These instructions, but used foil instead of a marble) 

To make our cheese and pepperoni tray I was able to use a cookie cutter for the cheese, but had to cut the pepperoni with a knife.

  Our heart themed salad was also fun.

We normally use red solo cups and write our names on them with sharpie markers.  But for the banquet I wanted something nicer.  So stem glasses were in order.  I wasn't sure how to mark whose was whose.  Then I remembered the window clings!  I put on a different small cling on each glass, now each glass is unique.

I used a silicone heart mold for making heart shaped ice.

 

Here is the dessert table after everyone arrived and added to it.  Yummy!

 We had 7 adults, 2 teens, and 2 children here.   It was so fun doing this!  It is nice to put forth some extra effort now and then to make something special.  I may have to do this type of thing more often.  Hmm...what's the next holiday coming up?