HEARTS DAY IS EVERY DAY!

Try some of Annie Lang's kids Festival of Hearts party ideas for a fun sleepover any time of year
Valentine's Day is long gone, but here's a great way to spend an extended weekend with the grandkids while their parents take a winter break.  We began planning several weeks ago and it's amazing as to how many great ideas a 6 year old can have!  Since the girls were spending several nights, the schedule needed to be filled with plenty of fun activities, games and projects.  We decided to call it our Festival of Hearts Party and with a little luck, it may become a February tradition. 

To make sure kids are well rested before the actual party day, we included toothbrushing and bedtime stories as part of the first nigh sleepover activities.

The first night of the party began with dinner, a heart cutouts house decorating activity, reading storybooks, a quick bath, tooth brushing, pillow fight and then an early bedtime to insure they would be well rested on Party Day.  To decorate the house, we were able to get a lot of Valentine decorations on sale at 75% off because of the post Valentine's Day sales.  We also cut and colored small hearts, stapled them to straws to use as pokes and hung a few from strings to make ornaments.  Red Christmas lights and bows also came in handy to decorate chairs and tabletops. 
Annie Lang suggests lots of fun activities, party food and games to keep the kids busy on their "Festival of Hearts" Day sleepover party
Here are a few of the party day activities the kids absolutely LOVED!
  • Color wooden hearts with small markers they can use for decorating.
  • Make festive little crowns out of color foam for kids to wear.
  • Make a "Pin the Nose on the Heart" game.  Use white butcher paper attached to the wall and let them color it.  Noses are made from pom-poms and double backed tape.  They can either close their eyes or use eye masks to stick the nose on the Happy Heart! 
  • Make a Tic-Tac-Toe game from cardboard sectioned off into squares with color tape.  We used kid size packs of gummies in lieu of bean bags and spent the next 20 minutes giggling and tossing them about!  We then added a mini bucket to each square and doubled the fun.
  • For party food, we had mini party pizzas, veggie straws, a cup of fresh raspberries, sugar free fruit flavored marshmallows, mini frosted bites and heart cupcakes.  I let the kids choose and serve the food so they would feel as though they were the hostesses.  
  • Take a digital photo, print it out and add it to a frame to give to each child to remember the day.

There's nothing like a bubble bath filled with pink balloons followed up by a movie and popcorn to make a great ending to a great party day.

Wrap up the Festival of Hearts Party with a Magical Bubble Bath, a fun movie and a bowl of popcorn! Simply fill the bathtub with lots of bubbles, colored lights and plenty of pink balloons for a magical bath they'll always remember.  When followed up with warm white fluffy towels, hugs and favorite jammies, kids will happily follow you to the couch to snuggle up with a bowl of popcorn and a fun movie to wrap up the day.

I certainly do love spending time with the girls, but most of all, I want them to remember our times together as something very special that we'll always cherish.  Hopefully you'll be able to use some of these fun ideas or add a few of your own to turn long winter weekends in memorable events!