Wood you be mine?

I meant to post this before Valentine's Day, but I'm reading the best book and every bit of free time I have, I spend with this book. I'm seriously obsessed, and I'm losing sleep because I can't put it down. Last night I fell asleep on the couch at 8:30 because I'd stayed up so late the night before reading it. I love Francine Rivers, and if y'all haven't read any of her books, I highly recommend reading them---any of them---but if you don't know where to start since there are so many, begin with Redeeming Love. It was the first one of her books that I read, and I have been hooked ever since. The one I'm reading now (A Voice in the Wind) is the first in a trilogy, and it has strengthened my walk with the Lord---all of Francine Rivers' books do that....I could go on, and I will in future post, but now I will continue with the post I started out writing! :)

Okay, onto what we did for Valentine's Day this year. Last year, we did one a little bit simpler, but they are older and have longer attention spans now (love it!!) so this totally worked well for us. Disclaimer: this was not my idea---I found it on this adorable blog!

We started out with circles of wood, cut from a branch at my inlaws' house. My father-in-law cut these for us, and because he had the right equipment, it took him all of ten minutes to cut forty four (twenty two each for Grayson and Emma Claire). Ben drilled a hole in each piece.

Next, I used a red colored pencil to draw hearts on each piece of wood.

Then, the easy part began. I handed each child a paintbrush, put some pink paint on a paper plate for EC, some red paint on a plate for Grayson, and they got to work.

They had a really good time and it was actually pretty mess-free. The paint dried overnight and the following day we repeated this step on the other side.

Next, we made the tags.

And ended up with an original product for the kiddos to put in their friends' Valentine boxes at school yesterday!

This messy little dude ate crackers while he watched his siblings hard at work. Next year, we might let him participate in the fun. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!!!