Puns R Us, Or, I Just Don't Like People

(I know. I KNOW!)

 Every year it's the same. The element that now makes creating nearly 100 valentines bearable is that I don't have to help with most of them anymore. (!)  I scout out ideas on ye olde internet, show them to the bigger girls, and they pick out what ones they want to make, mostly on their own.  If they don't see anything they like, they make up their own.

All I do is take pictures of the finished products and moan over the mounds of creative litter that fill the dining room ceiling-high for a week straight.  (Just ask Debbie and my Mom.  They saw it firsthand.)

Their valentines all followed along these lines, with slight variations.

Millie made origami cards and tidy, lovely sketched cards, but the one below deserves a special mention because she made it and thought of the pun all by herself.  (She was getting annoyed by my lame suggestions, and I have to admit that hers is classier than "You Rock!" for rock-hounds.)

The younger three still needed help, though.  I blame this fact (and not my weak state of righteousness) for my general lack of goodwill at the end of our three-day card-making session.  After we'd finished, Luci wanted to make more, even though she'd made some for everyone on her list, and Debbie heard me say, "I'm sorry, Luci, I just can't help you make valentines and be cheerful anymore."  before muttering under my breath, "I just don't like people."

Up until that point, however, you know, the point at which I turned on the entire human race, I had a pretty good time helping the little children make lots...and lots...of things like these.

I even "helped" Zeke make over a dozen of his own valentines. 

He provided lots of footprints, which tickled, and we laughed a lot.  (See!  I wasn't a curmudgeon at the very beginning, nor had the mounds in the dining room grown too high.  Could these two things be related...?)

My favorite part was Piper bringing me valentines she'd made when I was in the other room.

Of course, they were superior and beat the sterile, structured ones by a mile.  Silly Mama.  Next year, I'll set them all loose to make a hundred eyebrow-ed valentines!