valentine’s day | living peacefully with children

Some red tissue paper squares (easily cut out in bulk), hearts cut from cardboard pulled out of the recycling bin, some glue, and some kids yielded some spectacular decorations. It’s rather difficult to not come out with a decoration anyone could appreciate.

My three older children each decorated a heart, using slightly different techniques. My eight year old (the middle heart is his) went with the tried and true method of wrapping the square around a pencil, dipping it in glue, and neatly placing the flower like creation on his cardboard heart. My 6 year old (her heart is at the top) did likewise, but with a mashing down procedure at the end. You may notice the the bottom of the heart looks less fluffy. My 3 1/2 year old, whose heart is at the bottom), attempted this technique before trying out several others. It’s a mass of glue and tissue paper. All of them look spectacular, through my not so humble figurative mom glasses.

I love showcasing my children’s work as our holiday decorations. They do, too.

Our family celebrates Earth centered holidays, but for some reason, I never seem to be able to get everything together and organized for Imbolc, the holiday that both Ground Hog’s Day and Valentine’s Day stem from, on February 2. So every year, we push it off and celebrate closer toValentine’s Day. This year, I wanted to make the kids something small and inexpensive for little gifts. We stopped by JoAnn’s to pick up some zippers and saw all of their Valentine’s stock on sale, including all of the socks, and most importantly, knee socks.

My children like leg warmers. They are great for babies hanging out in diapers or for toddlers who are in slings and carriers to cover that inevitable gap between socks and pant legs. My daughter likes to wear them to gymnastics in the Winter and all of the kids wear them when we are bundling up to play in the snow. You can buy commercial leg warmers such as Baby Legs, Skid Pants, or Huggalugs. However, unless you find some that are being clearanced, retail is around $12 a pair for the regular length and up around $15-18 a pair for the extra long ones. They are cute, but not worth the price to us.

The good news is that you can make your own baby leg warmers out of socks very easily. The first pair I made was out of a pair of my daughter’s tights that were a bit too short and too worn to save for any other daughters we might have. It worked spectacularly and I’ve made several pairs since then. Kymy at Everything Your Mama Made and More has a fantastic tutorial on how to make your own baby legwarmers.

For under $2 (including tax) per pair, I was able to make extra long Valentine’s leg warmers for my children – which will allow for a lot of growth. It only takes a couple of minutes to whip these up, and they are always a big hit.