Valentine's Week

We started off Valentine's week with Chocolate Day on Monday. National Chocolate Day is in July, I think, but it seemed like something perfect to add to brighten our winter and went along with Valentine's week, so we are making this our chocolate day. :)

We enjoyed chocolate pudding painting, chocolate play dough, and dipping snacks in chocolate.

Play Dough - smelled SO good!

We also read some facts about chocolate. A few you may like to hear...

-It takes 400 cocoa beans to make one pound of chocolate.
-US chocolate manufacturers use about 3.5 million pounds of whole milk every day to make milk chocolate.
-Chocolate comes from a fruit tree; it's made from a seed.
-There are an estimated 1.5 million cocoa farms in West Africa (which is where 70% of cocoa is from) and  the average size of these cocoa farms is 7-10 acres.
-Each cocao tree produces approximately 2,500 beans.
-German chocolate cake was named for Sam German, who developed a sweet bar for Baker's Chocolate --  and was not from Germany.
-The melting point of cocoa butter is just below the human body temp, which is why it literally melts in your  mouth.


Valentines Fun the rest of the week...

We made crowns and endless amounts of heart cut-out projects. So. Much. Glitter. We had lots of fun learning about symmetry with hearts too and it was an extra-special way to paint them! :)

I found some great vday games, many which used the Sweetheart candies. Which, I think taste awful, but they sure are cute.

The kids have been elated to get mail and packages! :)  (Thank you Amanda, Grandma and Nana!)

We were excited to get some snow and warm enough temps to enjoy it for a day! :)

On Valentine's Day we enjoyed a day "off" so the kids and I had a slow going morning and ran some small errands. As usual its all about an excuse for yummy food for us. :)

One of the few mornings a year they can have a piece of candy before breakfast. :)

We made our "Red Lobster" meal of shrimp scampi, (kids had fish sticks) and the biscuits tasted so much like the real thing! It was a great treat. We finished it off with dipping strawberries, pretzels and graham crackers in melted chocolate. We are so blessed.