Valentine’s Day isn’t just for lovers!  Don’t we want to express our love to not only our spouses – but also our kids?   Valentine’s Day and the days preceding it is the perfect time to let our families know how much we adore them.    You can start some new family traditions and/or zero in on each member of the family in a special way

Here are some ideas to get you started.  Creativity brews creativity.  Let the creativity from this post help you generate your own creative ideas.

1. Start the day with a special “love breakfast”. Prepare your eggs or your pancakes using a heart-shaped cookie cutter.  What can you make with strawberries?  Drinks? Cakes? Crepes? Smoothies? Chocolate covered?  Make it special.   Create a special “love note” for each member of your family.

2. My daughter’s home-school community has the kids send “agape notes” to their friends. The notes include Bible verses and notes of encouragement.

3. Do a Valentine’s Devotional or create a game with your kids. In my parenting class, I encourage parents to pray that their kids would have a heart of flesh and not a heart of stone. (Ezekiel 11:19) What does a heart of flesh look like? What does a heart stone look like?  Use these verses and create some heart cards, that include these verses.  You can use them as a game or talk about them as devotional.

Hearts of Stone	Hearts of Flesh
Unbelieving – Hebrews 3:12	Believing – Romans 10:9
Troubled – John 14:1,	Peaceful heart – John 14:27
Heavy -Proverbs 25:20	Singing – Ephesians 5:19
Divided Heart – Matthew 6:24,                1 Kings 18:21, James 1:8, 4:4, Revelations 3:15-18	Purposeful – Jeremiah 29:11 and 32;19, Ephesians 2:10, Colossians 1:16, Ecclesiastes 3:1
Evil – Ecclesiastes 9:3, Matthew 12:35	Loving – Deuteronomy 6:5, Mark 12:30, Ephesians 1:15
Foolish – Psalm 14:1, Romans 1:21	Trusting – Proverbs 3:5, Psalms 127:7

4. I belong to a mother’s group and a few years ago we did a project where we created hearts with messages to post all over the door of our child’s room. The idea came from Pinterest. Here is a picture example from Caitlin Newman.

One of the moms, Heather Houle, wanted to be sure I added, “the words are not only the reason we love them but also encouraging things about them.  Like, ‘you’re great at math’, ‘you are a great friend’, ‘I love the way you treat others, etc’.”

Melissa Webb said she used her Valentine’s cut-outs at the breakfast table.

5. Sadly, not everybody has a somebody to encourage them with love and goodness. Have your family think of someone they know who is alone or go visit a nursing home.  Plan your visit to be armed with home-made cards and heart-shaped cookies.

6. I would be remiss if I didn’t share one of the most important ways of sharing love with our kids. Most Christian parents repeatedly tell their kids of God’s love for them.  We share Bible verses such as John 3:16 and we sing “Jesus Loves Me”.

On our farm, after letting the kids pet goats and sheep, I often let the kids know that they can hear from God according to John 10:27.   I ask everyone to be quiet for just a minute and listen or experience God.  When I ask, “What did you hear in your heart?”  Many times, kids will say – “Jesus told me how much He loved me.” Or “I felt an incredible peace and love.”

I then explain to the adults that I KNOW they have been telling their kids this all of their lives – but now it is written on their hearts forever.   This exercise of providing time for kids to get into the presence of God is simple and their child-like faith created the prime time for it.  I encourage parents everywhere to include a tangible time of experiencing God’s presence and His love.  This practice will continue to develop and anchor your child in the faith.

PS.  (Can you do a PS on a blog?  LOL).

I asked the ladies who shared their ideas and pictures to take a look at this blog before it was published.  Heather Houle took idea #4 to a whole new level.  She saved the cut-out hearts that she would place on ther kids’ doors from past years and created a Valentine tree.  She shared it was fun to look back on old messages and it added something different to the celebration.

Didn’t I tell you that creativity brews creativity?  What ideas are you working on?  Take a minute and share in the comments or tell me what you are going to do this year.