Feelin' the Love

Lily was ready to make Valentines several weeks ago. She loves to do 'projects' with her mom. And since I am not always as creative with project ideas for a 3 year old as I should be - we've been ready for Valentine's Day since about the middle of January... At least we have the valentines ready to give to Lily's preschool class plus a couple friends - I only had 20 lollipops. And while we were in the valentine mood we peeled and shaved some old crayons to make wax paper hearts for a banner. The valentines ended up taking way longer than I expected them to, like such projects always do - so the banner did not get finished the same day. I hung it in our window a few days later and have been enjoying how it catches the sun. A Martha Stewart idea from way back.

I guess I should take some photos of the valentines as well. I tried to have Lily contribute as much as I could and still have them turn out cute. Lily colored construction paper and helped me with the crayons, and I cut out the pieces for the cards during her nap so she could help me glue them, and made a place for her to sign her name. We did finish the same day at least. I was pretty impressed that she didn't get tired of signing her name so many times before we were done. (I was totally expecting her to stop halfway through and say "This is bor-n!")

A sample of Lily's Valentines

the flip side

This just shows how lazy I am getting that I didn't take them out the bag and lay them all out to take a picture. 

...but this gives you an idea of the stack we made, and how many times Lily stuck to writing her name!
I was impressed with her :)

They turned out pretty cute I think, nothing amazing - but more importantly Lily helped make them! (It's not like the preschoolers are going to treasure them forever or something!) I sometimes have a hard time figuring out just how much Lily can help before she gets tired of it loses interest, or I get tired of it and take over. It's tough for the perfectionist in me to let go and just let Lily do things sometimes - so I wasn't too worried about making 'the perfect' valentines this year. I'm learning!