Valentine's Day 2012

The girls had a wonderful Valentine's Day yesterday....lots of fun, sweets, and partying, which is what makes all kids happy, right? Here some pics of our festivities.

I saw this Valentine idea of Pinterest a while back and thought it was so cute and thought I'd give it a try. This was SO, SO super easy and cheap (about $2.50 for the prints and $2 for the suckers), and Mattie absolutely loved them. I was kinda thinking they were the cutest thing ever, and then I started seeing all this backlash on blogs and facebook about mom's who do too much on holidays to make themselves look better, and you should let your kid do their own valentine's, and blah blah blah. To all that chatter I say, this is the fun part of being a mom to me. Did Mattie hand make these all by herself? No. Did she help? Yes. When I told her the idea, did she love it, and then when she saw the finished product, did she say "best valentine's ever, mom!"? YES! So, whatever....we liked them. Mattie would hand out signed headshots of herself if it were up to her, so this was kind of a version of that.

On Sunday, we decorated a box for Mattie to take to school for all her Valentine's to go in. Lots of fun, and I let her pull out whatever she wanted to use from my craft stash, and I expected it to look pretty hodge-podgy, but she's got some decor ability about her, I think!

I had to take a picture of the card Mattie made for her teacher because I thought it was so sweet. We have been blessed with what is the absolute best Kindergarten teacher to ever walk the planet, and Mattie absolutely adores her:

The inside is what I thought was so precious, ha!:

These are the cookies I made for her class party...another Pinterest inspiration:

I ended up having to take Presley with me to Mattie's class party. Not my ideal situation, but it turned out OK. Mattie was so thrilled to have her there, and Presley felt like such a big girl. She begs me to take her in Mattie's school ALL the time, and she knows Mattie's teacher, so she felt like she was one of the students for an hour yesterday.

We finished our day with daddy bringing home balloons and candy for both girls, and we had a very routine, nothing-fancy dinner, BUT, I turned off the kitchen lights, and we lit candles on the table, so we had what Mattie calls a "Candle-Night Dinner". And daddy did bathtime even though it wasn't his turn, which is about the most romantic thing I could have asked for. Hope everyone enjoyed Valentine's Day!

Pocahontas

Last week Mattie participated in her school's History Parade. I was the proudest mama ever! This was not a required activity, completely voluntary, but Mattie really wanted to do it, and she could not have performed better. She really suprises me sometimes because she can be so shy and bashful, but give her an opportunity to get on a stage, and she's all over it!

We debated long and hard about what character from history she should portray, and finally we decided upon Pocahontas. Mattie loves Pocahontas and we had a Native American costume that I was able to alter to fit her, so this worked perfect!

Next we had to come up with a "speech". Mattie is my first child to go to kindergarten, and I have never been to the History Parade before, so I had no idea exactly how much of a "speech" we should prepare for her. Should it be long, should it be short....I had not idea! So I wrote up a brief Pocahontas life summary and we set about memorizing it over the next week.

On the day of the History Parade, Mattie was nervous, but she had an awesome costume and she knew her speech inside and out, so I kept reminding her of those things, and she ended up doing SO GOOD!

Here's my little Indian girl:


Mattie was about the sixth child to go in the parade, and every kid before her just got up on stage, and said who they were, and walked off. No speeches! I worried for a second that Mattie would panic and do the same, but she walked up and did her whole speech, and I almost levitated out of my chair I was so proud!

Here is her speech, which I'm putting here mainly so I can remember it:

Hi, My name is Pochahontas.
I was born in Virginia in 1595.
When I was a young girl, settlers came to my area.
A man named John Smith was taken prisoner by my people.
But I saved his life!
After that I visited Jamestown frequently, and became friends with the settlers there,
and there was peace during this time.
Later, I moved to England, and I died there with small pox in 1617.

Obviously, there is much more to Pochantas' life, but we were trying to hit the high points!

Here is Mattie on stage:

So, the History Parade is actually a competition, and they give awards by class in several different categories, and then the top performers from each class are invited to participate in the History Parade showcase at the end of the week at The Arts Center. Mattie won all the awards for Kindergarten (best speech, best costume, most creative, best essay) and she was asked to participate in the showcase!

Here she is that Friday on the big stage:

She had to go very first, but she rocked her speech again!

I was so impressed with ALL the kids that did the history parade. Tons of talented kids at her school, and lots of really, really good performances. We love our school!