Introduction to Valentine’s Day Visit with the Grandbabies

In this post, I will describe what we did during our Valentine’s Day vist with the grandbabies.

Because my four grandsons are all little, (four boys under the age of four), when two came to visit last Valentine’s Day, I needed to come up with fun age-appropriate activities. Read along and see what we did.

Valentine Cookies

First, we made Valentine cookies. I made the dough ahead of time and froze it. When the kids arrived, I thawed the dough. Here’s my delicious Valentine Day Sugar Cookie Recipe. You could also buy the store-bought Pillsbury heart shaped cookie dough. I thought it would be a quick and easy baking project to decorate Valentine Day cookies. Most everyone I know LOVES Valentine sugar cookies so I had lots of sprinkles and colored sugars on hand.

As you can see from the above photo, Jack my two year old loved be the generous Valentine heart cookie “sugar applier”. Below you can see the very cool platter by Nora Fleming that I love to use year-round. I just switch out the little “mini” (similar, here) that slides into the hole on the edge of the plate as the event changes.

Trip to the Living Desert, Palm Desert

During our week, we went to the Living Desert which is a zoo not too far from our La Quinta, California home. The Living Desert is a desert botanical garden and zoo located in Palm Desert. Above you can see how Jack measured up to the kangaroo, as well as the two of us attempting to feed the giraffe some lettuce!

Trip to the Duck Pond

Grandpa (alias: Mr. G.Q.) went on on walk to see the ducks with Baby Connor.

The ducks were glad to be fed. Here’s a photo of the young family.

Valentine Cake Pops

Don’t these Valentine’s Day cake pops look yummy? They are DELICIOUS! And so easy to make!

Recipe for Valentine’s Day Cake Pops:

-You just put 52 oreos in a food processor and grind them until they’re chocolate crumbs.

-Then you add an 8 ounce package of fully softened Philadelphia cream cheese to the crumbs while pulsing the crumbs with the food processor until well combined.

-Then Jack and I rolled the dough into balls and then rolled them in sprinkles. Jack was hilarious and I actually have a video that I’ll put up tomorrow on Instagram (@drjuliemarshall) that shows Jack actually making cake POOPS! He started rolling the dough into little logs instead of balls thereby making cake poops! Ahhh, 2 year old humor…

Valentine’s Day Art Project

Our last craft project of the week was to make these darling red yarn Love Monsters. I learned of this project from a fun Instagram site @babe.in.toyland. (Tiffany Wilson is the mom to three year old Clover and she makes the most creative crafts with her kid.) The monsters are based on the book Love Monster by Rachel Bright. It’s a sweet board book that any baby through three year old would love to have read to them. I think board books are great because they’re so sturdy and they stand up to lots of wear and tear from the little ones.

Aren’t these monsters so cute? So go to Tiffany’s site and look at the Valentine’s Day Highlight. Click through until you see the directions for this darling monster. You will need red yarn, a piece of red,purple, and white felt, glue, a plastic or paper cup, and a black marker.

Here’s a link for a similar Valentine’s Day tablecloth.

Here’s the last photo of the rugrats. They’re posing in my courtyard wearing their Mickey Mouse sweat shirts from Target and their pajama bottoms from Hanna Anderson. Could they be any cuter? Since these were from last year, take a look at my post, Valentine’s Day Outfits for Toddlers for some current Valentine’s day outfits for toddlers.

Thanks for reading! Please FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM @drjuliemarshall to see more family fun, fashion and food tips for having a very fun and full life!

Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

XO

Dr. Julie