Valentine's Day Preparation Full of Wins, Fails, and Good Enoughs

Valentine's Day Preparation Full of Wins, Fails, and Good Enoughs-Part I

It has been amazing to see Kathryn be this excited about holiday party at school. Last year she was indifferent to Valentine's Day, completely content to give out her cards and eat some candy but not sure really what the purpose of the day really was. This year, she has been ALL about Valentine's Day. She has been talking about her party for over a week, excited to help me make cupcakes for her class, and even more excited to get her Valentine's (we working on that better to give than receive concept, she is just shy of 4). This has also been my first Valentine's Day as a stressed out, over achieving, Pinterest addicted mom.

I should first tell you that I don't usually take K to school, so I rarely see her morning teachers. My husband is in charge of drop off and on holiday party days in charge of dropping off all of my Pinterest inspired creations. Last week one of K's teachers commented that she was excited to see what Pinterest creation I was coming up with for Valentine's Day and instead of being honored I was overcome with a bit of anxiety. I had apparently set myself up to be a "Pinterest Mom", and now I had set a bar that I wasn't sure I was capable of hurdling over. I know rationally that if I just brought in a veggie tray or some other store bought party item, I wasn't going to be judged for it (especially at 8 months pregnant). However, try as I might my over-achieving type A personality just wouldn't let me phone it in. I had to try to doing something cute and creative, which in the end led to mixed results.

Valentine Item #1- The Valentine's Card Box

I was not informed that K even needed a card box until Monday of this week, when I happened to see a small note (in very small handwriting) that said to bring in a decorated shoebox for the party. I of course wanted to do something cute and perused Pinterest looking for ideas. However, after seeing the amount of effort that a lot of these would take along with all of the other Valentine's related tasks I had at hand I decided a less hands on approach would be best. We had no shoe boxes in the house, but as fortune would have it we had just bought a jumbo box of K-cups at Sam's Club and the box was not only the right size but also had a perfect opening already cut out.

I went to Walmart and bought some red wrapping paper, some Hello Kitty stickers (alas there were no My Little Pony stickers so I had to find the next best thing), and some stick-on jewels and let Kathryn be head decorator. I had some scrapbook letters that I used for the top and other than that I was relegated to gift wrapper and helpful assistant.

K's box wrapped and ready to be decorated

Midway through the creative process

 

Finished Product

 

I am happy that I let K take the reins on this one. She had a blast decorating it and even though it looks like an almost 4 year old decorated it, she was the mastermind and not me. I could have agonized in making a perfect robot, toothy monster, or dragon like I saw on Pinterest but then I would have been doing all the work on something that is only ever going to be used once. In the end, this was better even if its not really Pinterest board material.

 

Valentine Item #2- The Valentine's Day Cards

 

I had originally wanted to do a cute Publisher made Valentine and attaching it to Squeezable Apple Sauce packets that said "I Hope You'll Be My Main Squeeze" like I had seen on Pinterest. My idea was thwarted when I found that my local Sam's Club didn't carry the squeezable apple sauces in bulk and buying enough at Walmart would have cost more than I was willing to spend. I then remembered another Valentine I had see that used single serving cereal boxes with "Have a Cerealsly Happy Valentine's Day" posted on them. I bought the 30 pack of Kellogg's mini cereals and created the card on Publisher is just a few minutes. I think they turned out cute and just had to be cut out and the double sided taped to the boxes.