Valentines

Today we had a nice breakfast in bed with a heart shaped "zebra cake". Cake and tea for breakfast together with the people you love - does life get any better than this? I got the recipe from the blog Baking Bites. (The picture on there also looks much better than mine.) I made this cake yesterday together with my daughter and it was really fun. (Well, except for the part when my daughter thougth she should get all the flour out of the bowl on the table ... but the rest was fun!) The cake turned out really nice and I think it's a really cool cake to make for (and with!) kids! They love the stripes and I plan to make it again when I have to bake something for kindergarten. I am sure it would also be very lovely as cupcakes.

As I wrote earlier in my blog in this part of the world valentines day is not really celebrated as much as in the US. But I still got a little something from my hubby and - the best part - my daughter gave me some chocolate hearts. Well, this was not the best part. The best part was, as she gave them to me, she told me
"I love you up to the moon and the water!"

I think everyone who has kids is familiar with the famous book "Guess how much I love you" and the famous quote "I love you right up to the moon and back." Well, she owns that book - obviously :-) - and used it to tell me how much she loves me. I was so moved. Even more so, when I asked my husband whether he had told her to say that - because I figured she could not have possibly come up with that herself. But he had only told her, that she should tell me that she loves me. How she said it she had totally made up herself! Kids are so amazing! That really has been the best valentine gift EVER!

I also gave her my valentine gift today - the felt cookies I had made. I had put them into an empty chocolate box. She took the box, realized that it was very light - much lighter than it was supposed to be when it containes chocolates - and stated disappointed "It's empty!". Then she shook it and felt (haha) something moving ... and looked inside. She loved it - BUT stated that she cannot give her dolls cookies with beads on top! "My dolls don't like to eat beads!"
She is just the loveliest and cutest thing in the world!



In the evening I also gave her the mail set I had made. I had written a letter to her and put it into the red envelope. I also had finished the green one finally and given her the whole set and showed her how to put on and off the address labels and stamps. She could "read" all the labels except for the one with the dog's name. However, she did not care too much for the fact that she can now write letters herself. She told me that she wanted her label on the envelope and that she wanted to receive another letter from me! No inclination at all to write letters herself! :-)
Oh well, I just hope that in the future all the cute labels are going to be used ...

Okay, what did I do the rest of the day? I had a day "off" because my daughter went with her daddy to visit his grandma. I rarely have a day off therefore I really enjoy those days. However, well ... our apartment looks like a HUGE MESS at the moment. My daughter enjoys cutting with scissors very much. Which I think is great! She can be busy cutting up some advertising papers, junk mail, old magazines or catalogues for quite some time. However, can you imagine what happens when a 3year old cuts up paper? Well yes - bits of paper EVERYWHERE! I mean it! There is probably no place in the apartment where there is no paperbit! So I was busy trying to clean up the mess I made during the last days while crafting and her mess from playing and cutting ... in between checking out some websites for valentine ideas and other stuff ... and trying to make some valentines for my husband. I had already so many ideas in my head but did not get around to making them during the last days ... so they are REALLY LAST-MINUTE! Since I did not want to end up spending all day on them they had to be quick and effective! :-)

I actually did try to make this garland out of cereal boxes with my daughter. Since she enjoys cutting so much I thought it would be a fun activity. And I really loved the idea of using old cereal boxes for this. Cutting up perfectly fine - and expensive - crafting cardboard seemed just so ... well, wasteful! However, it turnes out my daughter cannot cut cardboard very well. It is too thick for her to manage and she very quickly lost interest (before finishing even one heart). So this will be a project for the future!

She did however cut out hearts from coloured printing paper - still cheaper than crafting paper. I planned on writing something she loves about her dad on there. But whenever I asked her what she likes most about her dad the answer was "His sweater". Well, I simply don't get it. I have not noticed that she is especially fond of his sweaters so I am quite sure that it must be something I simply don't understand - maybe she loves to cuddle with him ... and that reminds her of hit sweater. I am lost, really! I asked her several times hoping for something else to come up. No luck. The answer was always the same. :-) Sometimes children are just a mystery!

I also cut out more hearts myself and added some things that I like about my husband and hung them from the ceiling above our bed.


I also made him a tiny present - really tiny. But when I saw this the first time I simply loved it so I had to try it. And since my husband loves to read and always uses scraps of paper to mark the page I figured he might like this bookmark.

I also printed this page out just for laughes and put it at the bedroom door.

I also wanted to make these hearts but couldn't find a good place where to put them ...

My husband and my daughter both were back in time for dinner and we we had "hearty" pizza. :-)


And I added some marshmallow hearts to my husband's coffee and my daughter's honey milk. (Taking a picture of a white marshmallow heart in white milk did not seem very clever - therefore I did not even try. To get a good photo I wanted to give my daughter cocoa, which she usually really likes, but she refused.)

I hope your day was as good as mine! :-)