It's Time for Hearts! (Valentine's Day)

It's hard to believe January is just about over and February is almost here. Valentine's Day is coming soon!  

I don't get any requests for homemade Valentines now that the kids are getting older. However, they still enjoy the Valentine's Day treats I make them. Normally, they get a small gift and some candy. I usually make a treat for the holiday as well (themed cookies, candies, pudding...) If you want any ideas, I have a list of Valentines, Food, Crafts, Gift, and Activity ideas below. If I come up with any new ones, I'll update the list!

HOMEMADE VALENTINE'S:

• Minecraft Valentine's Day Boxes 
• Heart Crayon Valentines
• Candied Popcorn Bags, "I'm popping with happiness that you're my Valentine". One year I attached a Valentine themed bag full of candied popcorn to a store bought Valentine.
• Use potato stamps to make a hearts on a homemade card. (Use a small heart cookie cutter to cut out the shape.)
• Play-Doh Heart ornaments/necklaces
• Make Heart Shaped Chalk
• Hot Air Balloon: it could even have a picture of your child in the basket. "Your friendship lifts me up."
• Butterfly Pencil
• Bubbles with a Valentine's Day themed note like "Your friendship makes me bubbly".
• S'more Kit (marshmallow, graham cracker squares, piece of chocolate), "Your friendship makes me feel mushy inside".
• Goldfish or gummy fish in a fishbowl shaped baggie with a "school" type of message. The pre-made bags can be hard to find and making the bags can be a little time consuming (click for directions). If you use a regular bag, you can cut a bowl shape piece of paper, write the message and place behind the fish.
• Other non-candy ideas: clementines, cars, glow sticks/bracelets/necklaces ("Your friendship brightens my day"). The dollar store or dollar bins at Target or Michael's are great to find little treasures in.
• Hanging Stained Glass Card with "stained glass" made from wax paper and crayons.
• Easy Stained Glass Heart with contact paper and tissue paper.
• "I know I'll go far/succeed with you as my friend" type of message with a goodie bag of school gear: pencils, erasers, goldfish bag, ruler, markers, stickers, etc. The dollar store or dollar bins at Target or Michael's are great to find themed pencils and erasers.

CRAFTS:

• Love Monsters and Bugs
• Heart Magnet and Bookmark Crafts
• Footprint Hearts (great for little kids)
• Stained Glass Valentine
• Play-Doh Hearts
• Valentine's Day Coloring Page
• Heart Bird Feeder
• Bouquet of egg carton flowers.  Works as a craft, decorations, and could also be a Valentine (write on the petals or leaves, use single flowers or make a bouquet...).

ACTIVITIES:

• Valentine's Day BINGO
• The Sky Is Falling, using heart shapes.
• Valentine's Day Word Find
• Heart Shaped Valentine's Day Word Find
• Valentine's Day Memory Game

FOOD:

• Hidden Surprise Poundcake. I made this for St. Patrick's Day, but if you substitute a heart for the clover, it would be great for Valentine's Day!
• Valentine's Day Cake Pops
• Valentine's Day Parfaits
• Easy Valentine's Day Lunch
• Candied Popcorn. Place in little Valentine's Day themed bags and they make a great Valentine's Day treat!
• Heart Peanut Butter Cookies
• Pie Jars
• Layered Jello
• Ice Cream Sandwiches, rolled in red/pink/purple, heart sprinkles
• Fondue
• Valentine's Day Candy

GIFTS: *

• Valentine's Day Gifts For Kids
• Unique Valentine's Day Gifts
• Last Minute Valentine's Day Gifts
• I even saw an ad for beef jerky flowers and a 10 day preserves gift box! 

PETS:

• The boys like to help make the Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Biscuits for our greyhound. We use heart, star, and pumpkin cookie cutters to make the shapes. 
• Gift ideas for Pets
• I also saw a Valentine's Day heart shaped box of treats for dogs at Target ($9).  

What are some of your favorite homemade Valentines and treats?

*If you buy an item on Amazon using the links, I may receive a small commission for the referral. It does not affect your cost at all! If you want, you can read my Disclosure page for a little more information.

Roasted Pumpkin (For The Dog!)

Each year at Halloween we carve our pumpkins, collect the seeds to roast, and throw out everything we have scraped and cut out of the pumpkin. I had been buying canned pumpkin to add to J's dog food (she LOVES pumpkin). After doing a little research and talking to other dog owners, I made our own pumpkin puree for her. Not only is it pretty easy to make, but she loves it and it is a healthy addition to her dog food.

It's really easy to do. Simply scrape out/trim the inside of your pumpkin. I removed the larger seeds since we roast them for us to eat. The stringy stuff and any of the meaty parts of the pumpkin are fair game. If there are a few of the small flimsy seeds, I left those in, but it's up to you. NOTE: I would only do this on a pumpkin that hasn't been carved yet and is in good shape. After it has carved, it can start to mold and could make your dog sick.

Line a large baking sheet or dish with parchment paper or aluminum foil. You want to use something that has sides since the pumpkin will release water as it bakes!

Place the pumpkin bits on the covered sheet and roast at 375 degrees F for about 30 minutes, until softened. Let cool. Place in a blender or food processor to puree. Make sure to get all the strings and any little seeds pureed.

After it is a nice mushy texture, I place it in ice cube trays and freeze. Once they are frozen, I pop them out of the trays and store in a gallon freezer bag. She gets 1 cube at dinner time. She loves them frozen in the summer, but I do sometimes heat them up in the winter.

If you are interested in reading more about the benefits of pumpkin for your dog, here are a few resources:

• AKC
• Pet MD
• Cesar's Way
• Of course, Google or your vet will be a great source of information as well!

Peanut Butter Pumpkin Dog Biscuits

About 7 months ago, we adopted a retired greyhound. She is an amazing dog. She fits in with our family so well. The boys love playing fetch with her and teaching her new tricks. She motivates me to take walks everyday.

I wanted to try my hand at making dog treats because, well...she's a little spoiled. I wanted to try making something fun for her and also so I control the ingredients of her treats. Some of the store bought treats had recalls, some had additives that weren't really good for her, and the grain free treats are more expensive.

Why grain free treats? Before we adopted her, I did some research on what the best diet/food was for a greyhound. While there were a lot of options, wheat/corn free seemed to be the main consensus (other than continue eating raw). Although diet restrictions aren't completely new to us (our bridge girl could only tolerate eating Iams or she had massive stomach issues), raw was not the way for us to go (for a lot of reasons). So, we decided to go with a mostly wheat/corn free diet. Although her food is grain free, she does occasionally gets treats that are made with flour.

After playing around with a few different recipes, I created a peanut butter and pumpkin dog biscuit. It is definitely one of her favorite treats. The recipe is made with brown rice flour, although I have made the recipe with half whole wheat flour and half brown rice flour. I think you could also use all whole wheat flour. They store really well in the freezer (I layer and cover in wax paper in a plastic container). As soon as she hears the freezer open, she now comes running!

Because she loved them so much, we made extra batches at Christmas and gave them out to our friends with dogs!
 

PEANUT BUTTER PUMPKIN DOG BISCUITS

www.DailyMesses.com

You will need:

• 2 1/2 cups brown rice flour
• 1 tablespoon flax seed
• 5 to 6 tablespoons water
• 1/4 cup creamy peanut butter (NO Xylitol, it's fatal to dogs!)
• 1/2 cup pumpkin puree (not sweetened or seasoned). You can add another 1 teaspoon if the dough is too dry.

Directions:

1. Mix ingredients together. Start with 5 tablespoons water. It is a dry dough. However, if you can't get the dough to stick together, add either 1 tablespoon of water or another 1 teaspoon of pumpkin puree. I found the best way to work with the dough was to mix dry ingredients together with a fork, then add in the peanut butter, pumpkin and water. Mix with fork, then switch to mixing and pushing the dough together with your hands. It comes together better using your hands to mix/squish the dough together than just using a fork. (The top of the picture below shows what just mixing the dough with a fork looks like (crumbly), bottom of picture shows when mix/squish together with your hands.)
   
   
2. Roll out. I found it easiest to shape dough into a ball and then roll out on parchment paper.
3. Cut out shapes and place on a cookie sheet. I used all kinds of cookie cutters to make the shapes (rabbit, squirrel, dog bone, heart for Valentine's Day, pumpkin for Halloween/Thanksgiving, star and mini tree for Christmas, oval for Easter eggs, mini flowers for Spring or Easter).
4. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 minutes. Flip over. Bake another 5-10 minutes or until dry.
5. Cool completely. Store in an airtight container.  I like to keep a few out and then freeze the rest. She likes them frozen as well.

Optional:

• You can decorate these with carob (while it looks like chocolate, it is not toxic like chocolate is) or yogurt chips.
•  These make cute gifts! I stamped names into the treats before they baked. I also decorated a few with carob. I placed in baggies and gave them out at Christmas.

Click here for a PDF printable recipe!
NOTE: I'm trying out adding a link for the PDF to make printing easier. Please let me know if it doesn't work and I can try something else!

*If you buy an item using the links, I may receive a small commission for the referral. It does not affect your cost at all! If you want, you can read my Disclosure page for a little more information.