Heavenly Homemakers

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Make Valentine’s Day Special for Your Kids!

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Do you celebrate Valentine’s Day? This year, I thought it would be fun to make it extra special for our kiddos! One mom shared with me that she really enjoys celebrating by decorating the house the night before, and serving her kids a special breakfast! That got my mind to turning on other ways to make this holiday extra special as a family.

How to Make Valentine's Day Special For Your Kids

Here are a few fun ideas…

How to Make Valentine’s Day Special For Your Kids

1.Make a Special Breakfast

Surprise your kids on Valentine’s Day with a special red or pink breakfast!

Nothing says Valentine’s Day more than pink and red yummy treats! Want to put some fun Valentine meals and treats on the table this year – but want to keep the food real and avoid food coloring? There are many real food options for a fun, Valentine’s Day themed breakfast! There are plenty of food that exists that is red without any help from artificial colors.
There’s also chocolate, which isn’t red, but is a huge part of any Valentine’s Day celebration (at least in our house).

Here are 29 great recipes for you that can be turned into Valentine’s Day goodies for your family!

2. Color Valentine’s Day Cards with your kiddos!

One of my favorite crafts is creating Valentine’s Day cards for your kids to give away to friends and family!

Grab this FREE Simple Print-and-Color version of our Valentine’s Day cards, and set out all the markers and crayons for them! Even more fun? Grab some glitter glue or stickers!

3. Make some heart-shaped snacks to give away

Bring your kids into the kitchen, and let them help you create some heart-shaped snacks to gift to others! Whether you choose to make heart-shaped donuts, pretzels, or brownies it will be a fun memory for your kids! Drop each goodie individually in a ziplock bag, tape on a note, and give them out to friends. Here are some ideas for heart-shaped treats you can make.

4. Make “You’re the Bomb” crafts

This is the most fun craft to make with little boys!! Pink hearts and sparkly flowers don’t quite cut it with little boys. But, tell the boys they get to make little bombs for their Valentines this year? You’ll get all sorts of help! Find the tutorial here!

5. Host a mystery dinner for your family!

Is there anything more fun than a mystery-themed dinner? Plan a special meal for your family, complete with clues! Here’s how our family did it one year!

6. Print out a free pre-K Activity Packet!

This Pre-K Activity Packet is FUN and free for you to download to use with the little ones in your life. Gain free access to this here.

7. Make Peanut Butter Truffles

Why? Because any occasion is a good occasion to whip up some Peanut Butter Truffles. Oh my, these treats, are SO delicious.

I love how easy these are to make, and that the only sugar in them is what is already in the chocolate chips!

How do you celebrate? Share in the comments below!

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Easy Heart-Shaped Food for Valentine’s Day

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It’s pretty easy to make heart-shaped food for Valentine’s Day! I’m pretty sure this is the least expensive way to treat your family and show them extra love!


Our family hardly ever spends extra money on Valentine’s Day, but we do like to make our food fun!

I recommend getting an inexpensive set of Heart-Shaped cookie cutters in a variety of sizes like this one. Then you and your family can be creative with all the ways you can make heart-shaped food!

Easy Heart-Shaped Food for Valentine’s DayYum

Food you can easily shape into hearts (with or without cookie cutters) before serving it to your family on Valentine’s Day:

  1. Simple Whole Wheat Pancakes
  2. Whole Wheat Waffles
  3. Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
  4. Quesadillas
  5. Pizza
  6. Whole Wheat Donuts
  7. Poptarts
  8. Quick Mix Biscuits
  9. Soft Pretzels
  10. Cream Cheese Cookie Cutouts
  11. The Easiest Chocolate Fudge
  12. Peanut Butter Honey Fudge
  13. Chocolate Chip Brownies
  14. Chocolate Chip Cookies
  15. Cheesecake Brownies
  16. Butterscotch Bars

To go with your Heart-Shaped Foods, here are some bonus Valentine’s Day food ideas, you’ll enjoy looking through these lists…

Red and Pink Treats (No Food Dye!)

Sprinkles are fun, but not entirely necessary if you have naturally red and pink goodies like these:

  1. Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies
  2. Strawberry Cream Muffins
  3. Raspberry Oatmeal Bars
  4. Chocolate Whipped Cream on Strawberries
  5. Strawberry-Peach Slushies
  6. Strawberry-Kefir Smoothies
  7. Strawberry Yogurt
  8. Strawberry-Yogurt Fruit Dip
  9. Strawberry Christmas Salad (which obviously becomes Strawberry Valentine Salad on Feb. 14)
  10. Low Sugar Strawberry Cheesecake Parfait
  11. 7-Minute Strawberry Ice Cream
  12. Strawberry Creamsicles
  13. Strawberry Shortcake
  14. Strawberry Milkshakes
  15. Easy Raspberry Syrup (for your heart-shaped pancakes)
  16. Raspberry Lemon Cream Cups

Don’t forget obvious foods that are red – like tomatoes, sweet peppers, strawberries, grapes, cherries, or raspberries!

Chocolate Valentine’s Day Treats

Chocolate is always a hit on Valentine’s Day! (And if you’re me, it’s also a hit tomorrow and the day after that.) Here are some great chocolate treats you might consider making to share with your family:

  1. Warm Chocolate Soother
  2. Chocolate Whipped Cream on Strawberries (which I realize I mentioned above, but it is both red and chocolate, so it deserves to be in both categories)
  3. No-Bake Chocolate Fudge Bites
  4. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins
  5. Peanut Butter or Caramel Chocolate Truffles
  6. Low Sugar Chocolate Cake
  7. Low Sugar Chocolate Cheesecake
  8. Dark Chocolate Peppermint Mousse
  9. No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake
  10. Homemade Chocolate Frappe
  11. Chocolate Cheesecake Pie
  12. Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

What are some of your family’s Valentine’s Day traditions?

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The Easiest Chocolate Fudge Recipe

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This Easiest Chocolate Fudge recipe is for real. I’ve never made an easier fudge recipe! (And you’ll love that these ingredients are REAL!)

You may notice that this Chocolate Fudge recipe looks strangely similar to our Chocolate Fudge Pie recipe. That’s because it is the exact same recipe minus the pie crust.

What can I say? One recipe always turns into another around here! It something works well for one recipe, it often makes sense that it will work well with a few minor adaptations. So it is with this Easiest Chocolate Fudge recipe.

When I first made the pie variety, I poured a little extra pie filling into a dish without a crust. It cut into pieces just like fudge, tasted amazing just like fudge, and so here we are with a recipe for the Easiest Chocolate Fudge.

Food really isn’t as hard as we like to think that it is. (This Simple Real Food Recipes Cookbook proves it. If you don’t already have it, you need it!! This will save you so much time and energy while you feed your family great meals!)

I figured you might need this fudge recipe this Valentine’s day as you make special treats for your special people. Use any chocolate chips you like best – milk chocolate, dark chocolate, bittersweet chocolate. So delicious!

Easiest Chocolate Fudge RecipeYum

The Easiest Chocolate Fudge Recipe
 
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Author:
Serves: 40
Ingredients
  • 10-ounces chocolate chips
  • 4 Tablespoons butter
  • 2 cups heavy whipping cream
Instructions
  1. In a small saucepan, melt the chocolate chips and butter together.
  2. Once melted, whip the chocolate mixture and the cream with beaters or in a high power blender (like a Blendtec) until smooth and thick.
  3. Pour mixture into a 9x9 inch pan.
  4. Chill for at least two hours before cutting and serving.

Chocolate Hint:

Do yourself a favor and order any of the Cocoa Powders, Chocolate Chips, or Chocolate Chunks from Olive Nation. (And use the code home to get 20% off!) I can’t tell you what a wonderful difference these cocoa powders and chocolate chips have made in my chocolate recipes. The quality is MUCH better, and they do not cost more than I was spending on the lesser varieties.

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8 FREE Simple Print-and-Color Valentine Cards!

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Nothing fancy, but still so sweet: These 8 Simple Print-and-Color Valentine Cards are free for you to print and use with your kids!

My favorite part is that they are mostly black and white, so you can print in “grayscale” if you want to so that they don’t use much printer ink! Then you can glue them onto colored paper if you want, or have your kids color them, which makes these cards more personal and more fun!

Our new-to-us 5-year old son LOVES projects of all kinds. He loves to be busy, loves to play, loves to sing, loves to help us with projects around the house. It is incredibly sweet, and also a little bit challenging as we sometimes have big-kid and adult-sized projects that a 5-year old can’t help with. We’re working to train him to play on his own or to work quietly at a table by himself sometimes. This is tough for any 5-year old, but maybe a little more challenging for this one.

Anyway, we’re getting there! We created these Simple Valentine Cards for him to color and get ready to deliver to his friends. Then we’ll work together to make some Valentine treats to go with them. Yep, he loves to bake with us too! (Phew, he’s keeping us young…and on our toes!)

Ready to get your free Simple Print-and-Color Valentine Cards?

Simply enter your email address into the form below, confirm that you’d like to receive the information, and you’ll be connected to our Heavenly Homemaker’s Learning Zone where you’ll get this freebie and MANY MORE!!

Want more fun Valentine projects to work on?

Find 32 Awesome Valentine’s Day recipes and activities here!

Holiday projects are the best kind of projects. :)

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Easy 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Truffles for Valentine’s Day

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Not that we can’t make a treat like this any day of the year. It’s just that these Peanut Butter Truffles seem best served as a special Valentine’s Day treat. Perhaps we should make a trial batch here in January though? And maybe remind ourselves how to make them sometime next April? Then again in August. All that to say, who am I to tell you when to make these truffles? I totally and completely support your truffle-making choices.

I love how easy these are to make. I love that the only sugar in them is what is already in the chocolate chips. I love the peanut butter-chocolate combo. I love…well, love. So see? These are perfect to make for Valentine’s Day!

Easy 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Truffles

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Easy 4-Ingredient Peanut Butter Truffles for Valentine's Day
 
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Author:
Serves: 18-24
Ingredients
  • 2 cups milk chocolate chips
  • ½ cup heavy cream
  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • ½ cup natural peanut butter (I used homemade peanut butter*)
  • ⅛ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (optional)
Instructions
  1. In a saucepan stir together chocolate chips, cream, and butter over medium heat.
  2. Just as the chocolate chips have almost melted, add peanut butter and stir until smooth.
  3. Spread mixture into a pie pan and chill for about two hours.
  4. Cut and roll mixture into 1 inch balls.
  5. Dip balls into cocoa powder if you like.
  6. Place on parchment paper and chill until set.

*I use homemade peanut butter from one of the following recipes:

Roll these truffles in powdered sugar for a fun variety. And place them into holiday colored mini-muffin liners to make them festive!

Here are many more Low Sugar Treats for you to enjoy!

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Want more great recipes that call for 5 or fewer ingredients? Grab our most popular eBook!

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32 Awesome Valentine’s Day Activities and Recipes

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It’s that time of year again! We’ve got an awesome list of 32 Valentine’s Day Activities and Recipes that appeal to all ages (long live the chocolate).

We’ll begin with a great printable packet for preschoolers. (Oh my goodness, we can use this at our house this year since God gave us our Bonus Boy. Things like this continue to delight me!)

Valentine’s Day Activities for Preschoolers

This Pre-K Valentine Activity Packet is FUN and free for you to download to use with the little ones in your life. Gain free access to this here.

Free Pre-K Valentine Activity Packet - Sample Pages

Valentine’s Day Activities for Elementary Students

This packet brags that it makes grammar fun – because it actually does! Who knew?

There are activities which include Valentine Sentence Builders, Fun with Creating Cheesy Poetry, and much more! There’s even a Valentine Brownie recipe – but before your student can make the brownies, he/she must find the errors in the directions first. So much fun!

Fun With Grammar - Valentine's Day Free Printable Packet

Gain free access to this here.

Valentine’s Day Activities for All Ages!

Print and put together these fun Kiss-Tac-Toe games to give away or to use as a family. We’re talking about chocolate kisses, by the way. But you already knew that. :)

vday kiss tac toe4

Gain free access to this here.

Valentine’s Day Activities for the Kitchen

How about some Valentine recipes to go with your activities? These are fun to make with your kids, or if your kids are old enough, these are fun to turn over to your kids to make without your help! (Want to easily teach your kids to cook? We LOVE this at our house! #affiliatelink) Here are 29 great real food recipes for you!

chocolate cheesecake parfait

Red and Pink Treats (No Food Dye!)

  1. Cranberry White Chocolate Chip Breakfast Cookies
  2. Homemade Poptarts, cut into hearts, of course
  3. Strawberry Cream Muffins
  4. Raspberry Oatmeal Bars
  5. Chocolate Whipped Cream on Strawberries
  6. Strawberry-Peach Slushies
  7. Strawberry-Kefir Smoothies
  8. Strawberry Yogurt
  9. Strawberry-Yogurt Fruit Dip
  10. Strawberry Christmas Salad (which obviously becomes Strawberry Valentine Salad on Feb. 14)
  11. Low Sugar Strawberry Cheesecake Parfait
  12. 7-Minute Strawberry Ice Cream
  13. Strawberry Creamsicles
  14. Strawberry Shortcake
  15. Strawberry Milkshakes
  16. Easy Raspberry Syrup (for your heart shaped pancakes)
  17. Raspberry Lemon Cream Cups

Don’t forget obvious foods that are red – like tomatoes, sweet peppers, strawberries, grapes, cherries, or raspberries!

Chocolate Valentine’s Day Treats

  1. Warm Chocolate Soother
  2. Chocolate Whipped Cream on Strawberries (which I realize I mentioned above, but it is both red and chocolate, so it deserves to be in both categories)
  3. No-Bake Chocolate Fudge Bites
  4. Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffins
  5. Peanut Butter or Caramel Chocolate Truffles
  6. Low Sugar Chocolate Cake
  7. Low Sugar Chocolate Cheesecake
  8. Dark Chocolate Peppermint Mousse
  9. No-Bake Chocolate Peanut Butter Cheesecake
  10. Homemade Chocolate Frappe
  11. Chocolate Cheesecake Pie
  12. Homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

Remember to gain free access to all the free Valentine’s Day printables by clicking here.

Signing up for this freebie will connect you to our new Heavenly Homemaker’s Learning Zone. It’s free and your info will never be shared or sold, and being on this list means that you’ll be the first to know of the other fun (yes, FUN!) educational tools we’re putting together! 

Heavenly Homemaker's Club Members: Access your homepage and all your fantastic resources here! Not a member yet? Please join us!

Valentine Breakfast in Bed? Or Just Breakfast.

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heartpretzelssm

Heart-Shaped Pretzels.
I don’t have time to make these this year. Maybe you can.

Valentine’s Day falling on a Sunday this year is messing with me. Some people are like, “Yay, Sunday! I’ll have more time to make it special.” Me? I’m like, “Oh goodie. I get to try to make something special out of our busiest day of the week, which is followed by a day away from home at basketball games, which comes at the end of a crazy busy last ten days.”

Pity party much, Laura? Eh, more like simply trying to find my wits while figuring out the logistics of making Valentine’s Day fun for my fam. Sure we could wait and celebrate on the 15th – except that we can’t because that is Justus’ 16th birthday and we’ll be all about Justus that day.

Making Valentine’s Day special is going to be a family affair this year – which works just fine because our boys are big and capable. We’ve all been in cahoots, and if you recall, we plan to make a big fried chicken dinner together that day. This is ultimately a terrible plan for a Sunday meal for us since it takes so long to prepare and we are all usually starving by the time we get home from church. But whatever. I guess we’ll come home from church, start the chicken frying, then eat our salad course while we wait. I plan to have the mashed potatoes made ahead of time. The boys can make a dessert on Friday before we go to basketball games. There, that oughta do it.

So breakfast.

There will not be time for me to stand at the griddle making our traditional heart-shaped pancakes that morning before church. Plus I’d prefer not to dirty up the kitchen at breakfast, rush out the door, then come home to make fried chicken around a bunch of breakfast mess.

I’ve decided instead to make one of our family favorites: Oatmeal Breakfast Bars – with a few chocolate chips sprinkled in (because chocolate chips turn these into something Valentine-y, right?). I can bake them Friday since I’ll be gone all day Saturday. If I have time Sunday morning, I’ll make strawberry smoothies to go with the bars.

While thinking about breakfast for Valentine’s Day, I remembered a menu planning resource I created a few years ago. This has 31 Real Food Breakfast Ideas, all of which are linked to the recipes you’ll need. Help yourself! Hopefully it will give you some breakfast inspiration if you need it (for Valentine’s Day and beyond)!

31 Days of Real Food Breakfast Ideas

I wanted to also remind you of a fantastic gift for Valentine’s Day that doesn’t involve the kids. (I mean, we love ’em – but Valentine’s Day night we anxiously shoo them off to bed so we can finally have some alone time.)

A MELT Massage For Couples package is so much better than any other gift I can think of. Most other gifts are eaten (chocolate) or die (flowers) and become only a memory. The MELT series is a forever gift. You can enjoy it on Valentine’s Day, the day after that, every other Tuesday, during times of joy, during times of stress… See? A forever gift.

I love (and need!) massages, and I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one. Matt and I have really enjoyed the MELT Massage For Couples videos and lessons. As I’ve said before – these are very tastefully done so you don’t have to worry about anything weird. They simply teach great massage techniques to bless your relationship!

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29 Fun Treat Recipes for Valentine’s Day – With NO Red Food Dye

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Low Sugar Strawberry Cheesecake Parfait 1

Traditionally we think of red or pink food dye squirted into white frosting to make festive Valentine’s Day cookies and cupcakes. Want to put some fun Valentine meals and treats on the table this year – but want to keep the food real and avoid food coloring?

It is a true fact that food exists that is red without any help from outside sources. There’s also this lovely thing we like to call chocolate. It’s not red, but it certainly says, “I love you,” don’t you think?

Here are 29 great recipes for you that can be turned into Valentine’s Day goodies for your family. You might be able to tell that I am desperately hoping for fresh strawberries to be in season and on sale THIS WEEK.

29 Fun Treat Recipes for Valentine's Day with NO Red Food Dye

Red and Pink Treats (No Food Dye!)

Don’t forget obvious foods that are red – like tomatoes, sweet peppers, strawberries, grapes, cherries, raspberries, and oranges. Ha. Just seeing if you were paying attention.

Chocolate Treats

Do you have foods you traditionally make and serve on Valentine’s Day?

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FREE! Printable Valentine Learning Activities and a New Kiss-Tac-Toe Game

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A couple of weeks ago I introduced our new Heavenly Homemaker’s Learning Zone where I offered a free “Fun With Grammar ~ Valentine Edition” Packet for 2-5 graders. This week, we’ve got a FREE Valentine learning activity packet for younger kids!

Free Pre-K Valentine Activity Packet - Sample Pages

I’ve realized that I enjoy creating fun learning activities almost as much as I enjoy creating recipes! This new packet includes activities to help your younger kids practice color recognition, numbers and counting, same/different, big/small, and more. Pick and choose which activities your child(ren) would enjoy. It’s all FREE!!

Enter your email address below to download your free Valentine Activities Packets:

 Click here to sign up. Easy as that!

I’m super excited to share that signing up for these freebies will connect you to our new Heavenly Homemaker’s Learning Zone. It’s free, of course. You can unsubscribe at any time, your info will never be shared or sold, and being on this list means that you’ll be the first to know of the other fun (yes, FUN!) educational tools we’re putting together! 

Happy Valentine’s Day Kiss-Tac-Toe

Remember when I made the Merry Christmas Kiss-Tac-Toe printables? Several requested a Valentine’s Day version, which is such a great idea! Malachi and I decided that these are perfect packages to put together to distribute to all his friends at our homeschool Valentine Party!

vday kiss tac toe5

The download comes with four Valentine themed Kiss-Tac-Toe playing cards, printable instructions, and printable gift tags. Malachi and I printed, cut, and created an assembly line to baggie up the games to have them ready to give away. Each bag needs to include 10 Hershey Kisses – 5 each of two different colors. The Kisses are the playing pieces (instead of X’s and O’s). It’s deliciously fun (although harder to play once you’ve eaten the playing pieces).

vday kiss tac toe4

Download your FREE Happy Valentine’s Day Kiss-Tac-Toe Printables Here.

Happy Valentine's Day Kiss Tac Toe Free Download

Next week I’ll share some of our favorite recipes that are pink and red but free of artificial colors – perfect for celebrating Valentine’s Day!

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Valentine’s Day Craft Ideas

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Need some fun Valentine’s Day ideas? Too bad I don’t have any for you. Just kidding. While I’ll never claim to be super crafty, I do have a few fun ideas that I’ve shared through the years here that I thought I’d remind you about.

First up, I’ll show you the “You’re The Bomb” Valentines we made last year. They were a hit with all of our friends, who thankfully, embrace the fact that we are a household full  of boys who like the idea of blowing things up. ;)

This year, we printed these fun, free Valentines from Diva Entertains to share with friends at our Valentine Party. Simple, inexpensive, done.

Any excuse to make Homemade Soft Pretzels works for me. No one in my family minds if we celebrate February 14 with fresh pretzels shaped like hearts.

heartpretzelssm.JPG

I’m not sure why I don’t think to make these Chocolate Caramel Truffles and Peanut Butter Truffles other times of the year beyond Valentine’s Day. Any random day should work, don’t you think? It’s always great to celebrate a regular Monday afternoon with truffles. Someone remind me of this in June.

truffles3sm

My boys obviously liked the above “bomb” valentines more than these flower valentines, but hey, I like flowers and pink hearts, and I live here too, so there. Here’s a Valentine in “Mint” Condition, which uses a York Peppermint Patty in the center.

valentinemint8sm1.jpg

And speaking of York Peppermint Patties, you might have fun making Homemade Peppermint Patties this year as a special treat. Call me if you do – I’d be happy to help you eat them.

What better way to end this post than by showing a picture of myself looking rather like a dork? These “The Better to See You With” Valentines are very easy to make and are fun for your kids to give to their friends. You’ll find the pattern here, and also see a picture of my oldest almost a foot shorter than he is now, and also with much shorter hair. Where has the time gone?

valentineglasses2sm.jpg

Are you making or doing anything fun for Valentine’s Day this year?

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