The other day while strolling through Target, I came across a Valentine count down—14 days of surprises like an advent calendar. I had been thinking about how happy my kids were with our Elf on the Shelf during December, and then it clicked…I decided I was going to do 14 days of Valentines for them so we can have fun—and spread love consciously during February.
Let’s be honest, even though we have a lot of hope for 2021, sometimes we still need motivation, and this is something I’m looking forward to and I’m sure it will be something my boys also enjoy. I started to think about ideas and wanted to share our 14 days of Valentines list:
1. Love Notes
We always tell our kids we love them, but on February 1st, my husband and I will leave them a ‘love note’ in a special place. For my 6-year-old, it will probably be his lunchbox and I’m sure he will be happy to receive it since he can now read it by himself. For my 3-year-old, I will leave the note in a special book and will plan to read it that day. The note will be colorful, so it catches his attention and asks about it.
2. You’re the Bomb!
Since we’ll just be getting started with the fun, I’m going to wait until bath time for their second surprise—and it will be a bath bomb! I found some bath bombs for kids and heart shaped sponges at Dollar Tree and I’m sure they will feel relaxed and pampered with these.
If you don’t want to do bath bombs, you could also do chocolate bombs as an alternative, which are pretty popular right now.
3. Blowing Kisses Your Way…
Once they get out of school on the 3rd, we’re going to have fun with bubbles and enjoy some chocolate kisses.
4. You Make My Heart Race!
My boys love Hot Wheels and I’m planning to give them one each so they can add to their collection and have some fun racing cars.
5. Random Acts of Love
As we head to the weekend, we will encourage our kids to do some random acts of love. I will prepare some ideas and tape them to pencils, and they can pick what they want to do (hopefully they will pick several ideas).
Some acts of love could be:
- Offer to help your family.
- Give someone a hug.
- Draw someone a card.
- Write notes for your friends.
- Call a family member that lives far away.
- Pray for someone.
6. You Make My Heart Pop! Family Movie Night
For Saturday, we will prepare a family movie night and watch a movie about friendship. Some ideas include: The BFG, Christopher Robin, Ralph Breaks the Internet, and Inside Out. Also, Disney recently announced they’ll have the movie Upside-Down Magic will be on Disney Plus starting on February 5th.
7. Super friends!
On Sunday, the kids will become superheroes as we talk about what makes a super-friend. At Target, they have a kit to customize your own superhero mask—I’ll add the cape. Walmart has 6-packs of Dress Up Capes for $5.97, and you can find more things to customize them.
8. You Color My World!
Pick up a multicolor pen, coloring book, or even a canvas with paint, you can choose what your kids like best. I’ll give mine some painting sets I found at Dollar Tree, but the most important thing is making time to color together without distractions.
9. Love You to Pizzas!
As we celebrate National Pizza Day, we will have a pizza party with heart shaped pizzas that you can find at Pizza Hut or Pappa Murphys, or you can also try to bake a pizza yourself and add all your special ingredients.
10. We Love You to Pieces!
We are getting closer to Valentine’s Day and on Wednesday, I’ll take out a puzzle with a family picture (that we already have) to put together. In the process, we’ll find ways to talk about our love as a family. You can find personalized photo puzzles on Shutterfly or even Etsy, along with many other stores.
11. Reading is Dreaming With Your Eyes Open.
We love to read every night, and today we’ll choose books about friendship and love. Last year we read ‘I Love My Texas Valentine’ and this year, I’m giving them the book ‘Sun Kisses, Moon Hugs’. We also love all Elephant and Piggie books by Mo Willems, as well as some other books like ‘The Giving Tree’ and ‘The Rainbow Fish’. They share special messages about friendship.
12. Love Grows Here
Who loves gardening? We’ll plant some succulents in a special pot, and I’ll encourage my kids to give them to their grandmothers.
13. Will ‘Zoo’ Be Mine?
Our special date will be on Saturday as we head to the San Antonio Zoo! As my kids are 6 and 3, they love going there and I’m sure this is something they’ll enjoy. You can also visit a drive-through zoo or another outing your kids will love.
14. Valentine’s Day Breakfast
We’ll start Valentine’s Day with a special breakfast and a donut decorating kit. The Art of Donut has decorating kits that are perfect for the occasion.
I also have heart-shaped papers that we’ll use to list the things we love about each other. From smart and funny, to stylish and hobbies we love, I hope we’ll highlight the best of each other, while my boys write what they love about themselves, too.
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Other Ideas for Valentine Fun:
- Our friendship ‘rocks’: rock decorating activity.
- I need s’more friends like you: make s’mores while you talk about the importance of friendship.
- Valentine’s Day fairy: prepare a scavenger hunt with Hershey’s Kisses and assign a color to each child for them to find the chocolates.
- Bake something sweet
- Valentine’s Day mani & pedi
