Have A Heart

I'm not one to go all out for Valentine's Day in general. Between the parties at school and being bombarded with ads during the weeks prior, I'm usually over it by the time I dismiss the kids. But having the Munchkin to share in the fun has renewed the holiday for me just a bit. Since today was a Staff Development Day, I was able to get home a little earlier and we made these yummy red velvet cupcakes-


The recipe came from Smitten Kitchen, one of my favorite blogs. These cupcakes had a great cocoa flavor. Although I find the overtly red versions pretty off-putting, I probably didn't put in enough food color in my batter because once they were baked, you really couldn't see even the slightest hint of red. We had a great time decorating them with heart shaped sprinkles and we even made a Valentine's Day craft for the grandparents-


I got the idea from one a student made me. The tissue paper squares are actually glued onto a piece of plastic film (I just set it against the purple background for contrast) and Munch got good use out of her new dot markers and her favorite sticky foam shapes. My initial impression with her careful use of paintbrush and glue (she would lightly dip, carefully brush a bit onto the tissue paper square, then add a dab onto the plastic before attaching the two) went out the window after I stepped a few feet away to get dinner going. She was happily working when I suddenly heard, "I'm stuck!" Turns out she decided to paint her face, hands, and arms with glue in squiggly and happy face designs!