A Life In Review

When my first born was little I decided that we would make a big deal out of everything. She taught us how precious and fragile life is and it changed how I viewed the little things. While we still don’t go crazy as a couple for Valentine’s Day, I do go a bit crazy for my kiddos.

There are two different ways that you can do these boxes. In the past I would gather items and prep them in the box for presentation on Valentine’s Day. This year however, I am going to be doing a Valentine’s Day countdown with the kids. It’s an idea I got from something my in laws did for my kids this Christmas.

They took small items and wrapped one for each day of December and my kids had a blast. It is something that brought a little joy to each day in December and I want to do the same for the first half of February. I’ll explain more below how to do each version of the box!

Valentine Box Version #1: (all ideas linked here)

This is how I do it: I never spend a lot on these boxes because this is not a major holiday for us but don’t let that stop you if you want to spend more. I broke ours down like this…

Something to eat: usually some sort of chocolate, and last year I added in the character juices that the kids love.

Something to read: here is a list of my favorite children’s books

Something to wear: usually something that they need for the upcoming season

Something to play with: usually nothing big, just something they can do. Art supplies like coloring and stickers and then a VERY small toy.

Valentine Box Version #2:

Following the same budget I created these boxes this year. Although your time is limited if you want to pull this together right now, my favorite place to get basket and box fillers is the clearance section OR the used tab on Amazon. Kids don’t need fancy shiny things and the point of doing the box this way is to just bring them a little joy each of the days leading into Valentine’s Day.

This year my kids will be opening some (in date) Christmas candy and snacks, along with some trinkets that I found post holidays for under $1. Since time is limited you can also hit up your local dollar store OR search your house for things that they haven’t seen in a while (this works well with little ones because they have no idea how much stuff they already have).

I wrapped each of their gifts and wrote the day on them. On February first I’ll put their boxes out and they can begin to open them (one each day). The present theme is the same as I’ve always done, I just spread it out more (more snacks, books, things to play with).

Have a happy Valentine’s Day if you choose to celebrate and if you don’t enjoy a good book and some chocolate anyway because that’s the best part (and we all know it 😉)