It's a charmed life

One of the things that I love about living in America and that is a little different between American and Australian culture is the celebration (albeit often brassy commercialisation) of all festivals with a great deal of sentiment.  I just adore it!  Even in Hong Kong with our limited storage space, we loved celebrating each and every Festival, Western and Eastern, with all of our cheap and cheerful decorations and best of all, Katy's handmade crafts.

America and Americans of course take everything to the extreme degree.  Valentine's Day now is no longer a day for spouses in our house... it's a super fun celebration of girly pink and red and hearts and flowers and chocolates and an adoration of our cherished child.

Katy spotted these beautiful handmade baskets at Wholefoods.  They're made by women in Ghana and sold fair trade.  It made a lovely Valentine's Day present and hold-all for all of Katy's treats.  She insisted on dragging the basket with us on our ski trip and just loves it.

 

Of course, Katy gets roses for any special day.  

And now, since we were spoilt by Auntie Holly and Uncle Rich with a box of See's chocolates, we are firm fans of See's and this will be Katy's new traditional Valentine chocolate! 

And for breakfast, chocolate covered strawberries...on a stick!
 

In Yan Laoshi's classroom, the parents really pulled out all the stops for a delicious, fun and very pretty party.  It's our last class party for the year!

Tita Yanira, Benjamin's Mom, and her sister visiting from Peru put together a beautifully decorated treat table with witty moustache glasses of strawberry milk, frosted cupcakes, candy hearts, pirate booty and fruit.  Elizabeth's Mommy, Chris, brought chocolate covered strawberries.

 The kids played a memory matching game with Rick with Dove chocolates and Hershey's kisses.

 And they made cute little woolly creatures with Elsa's Mom, Yaro, and Julie.

 

 They made scratch-out heart ornaments and thumbprint bookmarks with Lucy's Mom, Lauren, and Bryce's Mom, Jit.

And they made gorgeous tissue paper hearts with Kenzie's Mom, Cindy.

 Their beloved Miss Bonnie came to visit.  She likes to inspect all the Valentine parties and declared ours to be "the best"!  Miss Bonnie has been a consistent and enthusiastic, friendly, welcoming face for Katy and for all the kids, especially at drop off and pick up.  Last year, when Katy was sometimes still feeling a bit sad to be leaving Mummy to go to Kindergarten, Miss Bonnie really would take Katy under her wing and comfort and cheer her up.  We love Miss Bonnie!

To calm them down for the group pictures, Rick read them a Valentine story "Love, Splat", which the kids really loved.

 Happy Valentine's Day from Yan Laoshi's class.

And to round everything off, Julie made heart puzzles for the kids to find partners.  They loved it!  Katy and Lucy were paired up.  I took a picture of each pair...And off they went with their partners to PE.