Valentine Monsters

I almost lumped this one in with the upcoming February photo dump, but decided I’d give it a post of its own.

Yesterday, the kids and I attended the local homeschool group’s belated Valentine party.  (They always meet on the fourth Friday of the month, but having a late party was very convenient in getting our cards, candy, etc at half price!)

Even though I’ve been a member of their email group for about 1.5 years now, this was the first time I’ve worked up the courage to go to one of their meetings.  They always meet in the afternoon, right during naptime, so I’ve had an excuse until recently.  But since Jensyn can skip a nap occasionally now, I no longer had any reason to stay home other than my own nerves.  (I was so nervous!  My stomach was doing flip-flops, I couldn’t bring myself to eat lunch, and my hands were so sweaty!  Oh, how I hate going to a group function when I don’t know anyone!)

We really had a fun time!  We met a a nearby library, and there were around 25 kids (and their moms) in attendance.  We saw a few familiar faces, and I was surprised at how easy it was to get into a conversation with other moms.

The kids all had a lot of fun!  Each child was asked to bring a solid red gift bag, and these were used to make a Valentine Monster.  (Jensyn insisted on a pink bag, so she has a pink swirly monster.)  The monsters had feet at one point, but the wind blew some of our feet away when we were leaving the library.  I tried to catch them, but it was super windy and I didn’t stand a chance!

After this, the children lined up and walked around the tables to distribute their valentine cards and candy.  Jensyn realized what was going on, got out of line, and went to watch as all of the other children put candy in her bag.  She left Mama to had out her cards and candy because she was just too excited to see what she would receive.

After this, we had a soup and salad potluck lunch.  When the kids finished eating, they played “Honey, Do You Love Me?” while sitting in a circle.  Embarrassingly, my boys thought it was going to be “Duck, Duck, Goose”, so they started running around the circle and tapping heads!  Red-faced Mama moment!  Whoops!  Max and Jensyn just sat with me to watch, but Alex joined in about halfway through the game once he caught on.

I tried to take a few pictures while we were there, but my camera’s phone was not cooperating.  So…I got a picture of their party bags when we got home.  That’ll have to do!

We plan to try making it to their next meeting, since we all had a good time.  Hopefully it’ll be a little easier on Mama’s nerves now that I know no one bites, ha ha!