Happy February! Does it feel like winter in your neck of the woods? We’ve had amazingly sunny, warm days, but there’s FINALLY some rain in the forecast. Hoping for the “atmospheric river” the meteorologists keep predicting.

Even in the warm weather, I’m still pretending it’s winter, and I’ll be keeping the winter white decorations up for a little bit longer.

The first day of February snuck up on me again. Last year, I decorated the kids’ bedroom doors with hearts for Valentine’s – a new one attached each day with a little note, telling them all the different things I love about them. It was a huge hit, so I was planning to do it again this year. And while I did win the “Happy February!” competition, I forgot about the hearts until Husband headed down the hall to get them out of bed. I ran around looking for pink paper to cut out hearts and attach them before they noticed. They seem to love it even more this year than last.

(Side note: They’ve kept the hearts from last year up on their doors all year, so I had to scramble to get the old hearts off before attaching the new ones. I saved them all in a little “Valentine’s Hearts” book for each of them – the epitome of Cheesy Mom moments, but they love flipping through them and “reading” their hearts.)

Also on the first day of February, I decided do some Valentine’s projects for the house. At the kids’ insistence, we added sparkly heart stickers to the tiny snow garland on the mantle and a giant heart doily to the mirror. Then I got out my latest dollar store purchase to make a garland.

I found a pack of 30 heart shaped doilies for – you guessed it – a dollar. I wanted to make some 3D hearts to hang on string along the windows at the back of the house.

I started by folding the hearts in half.

For each hanging heart, I folded three hearts.

I spread glue along one outside half of the folded heart.

Then I placed a second heart on top of it, lining up the edges and the perforations.

I repeated with the third heart, and then glued the final open half heart to the other side.

This is how the heart looks from the bottom with all the sides glued.

I made a bunch of these and strung them on white string.

That’s it. A quick, easy – and SUPER cheap – Valentine’s project.

Do you have Valentine’s traditions? Husband’s birthday is Valentine’s Day, so historically, it’s usually been more of a birthday celebration. But since we’ve had kids, we’re always looking for fun traditions and little rituals to add to our family – like Valentine hearts on the bedroom doors, but also simple things like hot chocolate on Saturday mornings and Pizza Fridays. (Some that I remember from growing up were popcorn on Friday nights while watching Dallas and Falcon Crest, biscuits and gravy on Christmas morning, and, of course, Saturday morning garage sales with my Dad. And I’ve mentioned before that birthdays were HUGE in my family.) I’d love to hear what kind of traditions – big and small – you have.