Happy Valentine's Day

These are pieces of art that the kids did at school this week. It didn't come out in the picture, but they are titled "The Hands That Touch My Heart". I was touched by this project because it reminded me of how kids touch our hearts in even the smallest things that they do.

Today Matthew and Madeleine helped me to decorate cupcakes for their school. Matthew took two aside "for Mommy and Daddy" and decorated them especially for us. After he was done he explained that all the sprinkles, etc on mine were "rivers of love". Definitely touched my heart with that one. To the right are the ones for us, with mine in the front. I think the one in the back for Marc is unfinished in this picture, because I remember a lot more decorations on the finished piece.


Madeline spent a lot of time with her decorations too. She was very deliberate with every piece she put on each cupcake. She spent about 45 minutes beautifying a plate of 8 cupcakes and was immersed in her artwork the entire time.

When I decorate cupcakes, I tend to do the same general decoration on each one. But, for the kids, each cupcake was a new canvas. Every cupcake was very unique and very beautiful. The kids really seemed to enjoy themselves and put a lot of love into each one.

Madeleine and I met Matthew at school after lunch and brought the treats. It was a sea of red with all the Valentine themed shirts everyone wore. Even the adults had red/pink shirts. We went to a birthday party later in the day and I felt like one of those people that leaves the conference with their name tag still on the shirt. We were the "red" family. All the other kids/families likely celebrated at school too, but somehow many (not all) of them managed to change.

The kids got lots of Valentine cards in the little bags they created earlier in the week. Lots of them had candy attached to them. I had told Matthew that the letter from school said that candy was "not encouraged" and he finally agreed to give his friends a sticker puzzle Valentine. So, although he was thrilled with all his candy, he told his teacher, in a very sweet way, that next year the "letters on the note might need to be bigger".....the "not encouraged" part.

So it seems they can touch our hearts and make us laugh too!