Valentine's Day has always (as long as I can remember, anyway) been a family holiday more than a romantic holiday for us. I love making valentines for all the kids every year and seeing the ones they make for each other. We set them out at each other's places at the breakfast table, and everyone is SO excited to run into the kitchen in the morning and see what is there!
Clementine's valentines were THE CUTEST this year. She is starting to try drawing different people and animals (instead of all gnomes, all the time…though there are still many gnomes) and I love every single thing she draws.
We were also all so delighted with the little "words" Clementine wrote for everyone. This was the valentine she made for Malachi. Tit tit tit, ha ha hu to you!
This one was for Abe. Hhhhhhhhhhh!
And a perfect penguin for Daisy, with the cheery sentiment "Ttii"!
For me, a bunny and "Timnihay."
Sam always draws the best things for everyone. I love my valentine full of bunnies. But the long-trunked elephants are a close second.
All my valentines gathered at my place
Daisy spent all week making these tiny cross-stitch valentines for everyone. So small and cute! I can't decide if I like the Caw or the fox or the elephant best.
I didn't get pictures of nearly all the valentines (the girls are getting SO artistic, Teddy spent hours on his, Gus made multiple valentines per person and selected the colors and drawings with SUCH care), but I did get a picture of this beautifully simple penguin that opened into a heart. Ziggy made it for Daisy.
The sky was really pretty that morning. Covered with vapor trails.
We decided at the last minute to make a bunch of Valentine's chocolates and sell them. Daisy made a flier and we just advertised them on our little neighborhood ladies GroupMe, and we thought we might get a pity order or two. We were okay with that, knowing we'd have no trouble eating them ourselves! But we ended up selling twenty-six boxes (four chocolates to a box)! We were surprised and pleased! Subtracting our costs and the amount of time it took, the earnings of the four kids who helped were…let's see…about $3.28 per hour. $13 each. Ha! Well, so it's not going to make us rich anytime soon. But we are going to pool the money we made and do something fun with it!
And it was fun making the chocolates, anyway. We pride ourselves on them being really good. As good as any we've had from professionals. We hope our customers were pleasantly surprised.
Caramels drying
Daisy made a tiny chocolate, of course
We made caramels (semi-sweet and milk, salted and unsalted) as well as orange cremes and raspberry cremes. The raspberries were particularly good this year (I think the freeze-dried raspberries we used were fresher than last year's). But really, they were all good. Caramels are always my favorite.
It was a happy Valentine's Day for everyone!
No comments