toddler valentines – Casa de Murphy

Last week was a lot of fun in Casa de Murphy….naturally, there was a lot of EXTRA love floating around, as we celebrated Valentine’s Day ❤

Liam was super excited to have a party at school on Friday, as well as exchange Valentine’s with his friends. I had found two different Valentine’s that I thought he would like, but this is the one he picked:

I found this awesome FREE PDF to use for the Valentine card from Simply Modern Mom. I bought a 24-pk of bubble sticks from Target for $3.99 and found a fun roll of washi tape, also at Target to tape the sticks to the card. It was perfect!

I brought back last year’s fav bag toppers from Makoodle to use for our teacher’s gifts. This, again, is another awesome FREE PDF. I am so in love with Liam’s enthusiasm of the holidays this year! He was SO into walking around all the rooms and hand-delivering these bags….it was THE cutest!! ❤

For a look back on what we were up to last year for Valentine’s, check out our post here.

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I was so tickled when I found Liam’s Valentine’s shirt from last year in his closet and realized it would still fit him this year. Ya know it’s just these little things that make us mommy’s super happy, right?!?!

And, just for a little bit of loving nostalgia of this heart-filled holiday, here’s a look back on our other Valentine’s with little man:

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On Friday morning, before we headed out the door, I couldn’t help myself on the cuteness overload ❤ & snagged a quick pic {thanks, Daddy!}

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After school on Friday, Liam had a ball looking at all his little Valentine’s from his friends, and a few from his teacher, Ms. Tamie. I loved that he listened very carefully, as I told him who each Valentine was from 🙂

Valentine’s Day morning started out as a sweet one. We had a few gifts for Liam to open when he woke up. He has really been into the Duplo Legos, lately, so he got a new set, as well as pretty cool Hulk mug that we found at Target.

Stephen surprised me with this totally awesome black & white canvas painting of a picture of my two boys ❤ ….definitely an understatement to say that I am in love with it!

This was done by a local artist, Nikki Bentley. For info on prices or how to order, you can contact her at Bentleyspawprints@yahoo.com

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I am not going to post pictures or get into much detail, but since it happened & I am about sharing our “real” life here….I will tell you that ad mist this crazy love fest of Vday, we had an unfortunate accident later in morning on Saturday. My poor sweet baby splashed very hot water on his arm in the kitchen & got a 2nd degree burn 😦 …it was a scary incident but happy to report he is okay. We have a few weeks of healing ahead of us, but he is doing great. It was heart-breaking to see him in so much pain, though. I feel horrible that it happened and so many times wish I could re-do the whole situation, but I guess that’s why we call them “accidents”. Still hurts my heart.

The funny thing is that after we left the urgent care center, and we were on our way home….I was planning an afternoon of rest {well, at least, in my head}. I {honestly} felt like we were all emotionally spent by that point and it wasn’t even noon, yet! However, when everything happened, we had been preparing to leave to go to Sea World and Liam knew this. Sooo, he actually cried so hard in the car {again} when we told him that we didn’t think Sea World was going to happen, afterall. By that point, neither of us could watch him cry anymore, so we caved 🙂 ….and decided to just go for a few hours. He was all bandaged up, and it seemed to really lift his spirits and take his mind off of what had happened. So…. win! I took a few cute pics, as this was our 1st family trip there, and will share those later this week.

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We hope you all had a fantastic Valentine’s Day weekend! Until next time, friends!

Happy Valentine’s Day!! Pardon the pun, but I really LOVE this holiday …I love the colors, love the hearts, love the warmth we feel, love the decorations, and LOVE making valentines. I have such fun memories from being a kid and making the shoe box to bring to school to fill with valentines from my friends. Now, I’m excited for Liam to experience that.

Here is my little valentine from this morning. All dressed up with a special shirt for his party at school today. So handsome!

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Thank you to Riley Reigh for this fab design especially for our little dude. You can check out her page on Facebook, Instagram, and Etsy. She also designed the shirt we had for him on his birthday, and I am sure this won’t be the last. LOVE IT!!

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Thanks to my obsession with Pinterest, I created this fun valentine for Liam to pass out to his friends at school today. I was inspired to do the cereal idea from a few different pins I came across, but ended up making my own template via Publisher. I found mustache washi tape at Jo-Ann’s and used that to affix the valentine notes to the mini cereal boxes that we bought at Publix. I hope the kids “cerealsly” like them as much as I enjoyed making them 🙂

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Then, I couldn’t stop….so, I found a FREE printable “hugs & kisses” tag here on the MAKOODLE website, so I modified it a bit and used the front half only. On the back side, I wrote a personalized note from Liam with heart shaped stickers I purchased at Target. I tied these tags to small treat bags filled with Hershey’s hugs & kisses chocolate candy’s. Perfect!

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At drop off this morning, Liam’s teacher gave me this sweet card that he made for us. ALWAYS LOVE the hand-print projects…

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The elephant was an early Valentine’s present that we got from Mimi & Papa-D over the weekend. Clearly, he was a fan. Big hugs!

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My mom started the tradition of a few gifts on Valentine’s Day with my brother & me when we were small, so, of course, I am carrying it on…it only feels natural. Last year, he got a few books & his little oven mitt for his kitchen. This year, since Thomas is quickly growing in popularity, we thought it only fitting to go with that. So, these will be waiting for him when he gets home from school.

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And…..last, but CERTAINLY not least. The most wonderful surprise to my afternoon, so far. My better half made a surprise appearance at lunch time with this wonderful arrangement of flowers {they smell heavenly!}. We are usually always focusing all of our efforts on Liam most days, so this was a wonderful surprise and MUCH appreciated 🙂

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I know that showing love to family & friends is all year round …but ya got to admit, it’s extra special AND fun today. I think that’s why I like Valentine’s Day so much. Not because it’s the only day of the year to show your feelings but because it’s a FUN day!

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So, go out & have some FUN people….and LOVE!!

XOXO