Friendship IS Love

Going into Valentine's Day, I really thought about how I wanted to celebrate the holiday.  I hate to see Jeremy spend a lot of money on things like candy and flowers, marked up and overpriced just because it's a romantic holiday.  Most Saturdays he buys me flowers at the grocery store and he always gets me my favorite Dove chocolates.  I love going out on dates with him, but lately our favorite dates have been playing with Legos after the kids go to bed.  Counting calories as much as we both have been limits the amount of eating out we do, and there simply aren't any movies we want to see out right now.

I finally decided that Valentine's Day is a child's holiday and it peaks in high school.  So I decided to throw a party for my kids and invite their friends to come over.  Several of our friends opted out because of the not-pox, but our church friends, who had been around our kids the Sunday they came down with the not-pox in the first place, brought their kids over.  I encouraged the parents of the older kids to drop and go as it made it a Valentine's gift to our adult friends as well.

We wound up with six children and it was perfect.

We did a couple of different crafts.

 

Then Jeremy made the kids homemade pizza.

And I had decorated the cookie cake Jeremy had made earlier that day.

The kids devoured their pieces.

I read the story of Valentine's Day.

Then the kids just played for an hour or so.  They all kind of did their own thing, but I know Sydney is always asking for her friends to just play because often when I have kids over, I put up all of the toys and structure the entire time.  So I made sure I left unstructured time during this party.  After an hour and half, though, it was time to clean up and watch a movie before going home.  Ava had brought Sydney a box of chocolates.  Sydney was very anxious to open it and I finally realized that she did not have the expectation that a heart shaped box wrapped in cellophane would have chocolate in it.  I explained that it was indeed a box of chocolates and that if she opened it that evening, she would have to share with her friends.  So she did.

Then they all settled in for The PowerPuff Girls until their parents came to get them.

I am so glad we did this.  It was so much fun to watch the kids having such a good time together, and I know Jeremy and I will take another opportunity to go out some other time.  It was nice to give this gift to our friends and nice to watch our children enjoy theirs.

Friendship IS Love.