A Winter's Weekend to Craft and Bake With Our "Grands"!

Some old fashioned Valentines, favorite photos, aluminum foil, a shoe box, decorative papers, scissors, glue stick and tape. 

Doesn't this bring back one of your most favorite holiday celebrations in elementary school?

While spending the weekend with our grandies this weekend, a topic of discussion was the approaching month of February and the holidays in it.  We talked about Ground Hog's Day a little and shared a chuckle.

We then talked about Valentine's Day. "Do you know what Valentines are"?, I asked my oldest grandson who is 4 years old.  "No, what are Valentines"?, he replied.  "Oh, well, you begin by taking and old shoe box and decorating it in order to receive your Valentines"!  "Would you like to learn how to make a Valentine box"?  "Sure", he said.  So after eating a good lunch that his mother and dad prepared for us, we began our quest to make a Valentine box and learn what Valentines are.

I had previously chosen favorite photos of our grands and printed them off using the smallest setting.  I assisted with the cutting of the strips with a child's scissors since this was about the first time he had used them.  We glued decorative papers to the back of the strips with a glue stick.  By placing right sides together we put in one staple and folded them out and down and put one more staple in the bottom to form a heart.  We strung the hearts together with thin ribbon to create a garland in which to hang from their kitchen window.  This was fun and we continued on with our crafting afternoon.

So cute!

Granddaughter, Kate is pulling off heart shaped stickers to use on her project.

Grandpa joined in our fun and showed our grands how to make decorated cupcakes much like the ones we might have taken to school, made by our mothers, for us to share with our fellow classmates at our Valentine's Day party.

Blake and Kate enjoyed baking with Grandpa.  We brought a strawberry flavored cake mix and we learned that Blake's favorite flavor is orange so we all made a trip to the grocery to pick out the ingredients we would need for our cupcakes as well as what we would have for supper that night.

Blake and Kate chose our evening meal which included:

Stouffer's macaroni and cheese

Baked fish sticks

Frozen broccoli

Frozen corn

We picked out a movie of Alvin and the Chipmunks Valentine Party.

Once home we continued through the afternoon creating our cupcakes and making our Valentine box.

I love how it turned out.  It was a fine box!

"Grandpa, this tastes pretty good"!

"Yea, this is good"!

Grandpa shared a childhood memory with our grands.  He remembered one year when he planned his Valentine box design and spent time making it, addressing his Valentines to all his classmates and his Teacher.  His mother even made cupcakes for him to take to school to share in their party. He carefully put everything in place so that it would be ready to go for the next morning's travel to school.  He went to bed that night excited about how fun the next day was going to be.  When he woke up, he felt a little out of sorts and he noticed some red dots on his tummy.  He called to his mother and she told him that he had gotten the measles and would have to stay home from school and in bed for a while.  Needless to say, Grandpa was a little bummed when he had to stay home, up in his room, in bed in order to get over his measles.

The cupcakes turned out beautifully and tasted great!

While waiting for our supper to bake, Blake and I watched the Alvin and the Chipmunks movie together on his DVD player.

He also enjoyed addressing Valentines to his cousins, Grandparents, Mom and Dad.

The next day, we had copies made of our crafting/baking day and placed them in a great Hallmark photo album recordable book in which Grandpa narrated the experience quite sweetly for our grands to remember their day of Valentine creation with their grandparents.  We love those recordable books and recommend them if you haven't tried them.

It was wonderful!

Have a terrific upcoming Valentine's Day and share it with safe keeping of the ones you love!  It will warm your heart, especially in these snowy days we've been having.

:)