Valentine's Day Ideas - Minneapolis,MN

One year I made my husband a heart shaped meatloaf. We laughed at how it was like something out of a 1950's sitcom but he enjoyed it (he really likes meatloaf). Many foods can be made heart shaped or have a pink or red topping added. My 4 year old loves cupcakes which can easily get decorated for the holiday. A construction paper Valentine that your kids paint or color is nice to keep, especially if you put a handprint.

You can make placemats where you make heart shapes with the children's handprints, and little messages, on the appropriate size paper. (Messages: think short and sweet like those nasty candy hearts....You're fun, So glad you're mine, I love you, etc). You do the hand print hearts as the main thing, then with a marker or paint pen just add the messages around them. Then you can laminate them (Kinkos or wherever). Don't forget to date the back. Then eat your V-day dinner with them!
Another thing you can do is teach your 3 year old how to fold the paper and cut along the lines you draw so he can cut out his own hearts (a big red one, then a slightly smaller pink one on top of it, and then a bunch of little ones to go all around the big ones). You can glue the backs of the hearts and then let your child place them on a big paper for a sign (for your youngest, maybe use a glue stick on his and let him place some little ones on). Then let them each put one handprint (one a left hand, one a right hand) over the big hearts. Write on the sign: "I love you to pieces" and take a picture of them holding the sign together. Then you can take that photo pretty much anywhere and have it made into a puzzle. (Pieces).
One thing that I did when we were just dating, which you can do for any occasion (I did it for Thanksgiving but Valentines day would be great): I made a huge list of every reason I could think of on why I loved him or why I was thankful for him. I had to kinda double check the list so it wasn't all repetitive. Then I cut construction paper into little strips (your 3 year old can help with that) and wrote all the reasons again on those strips of paper. I bought a big bag of balloons and rolled up and stuffed 1 reason into each balloon! (This will take awhile; do it while watching your show when he's at work or something). Then I actually blew up all those balloons and stuffed his Trooper with them! (A trooper is pretty big---it takes A LOT of reasons; you may want to adjust how big you blow the balloons by how big the car is and how many reasons you have, LOL). Buy a really big needle (for almost nothing!) and tape it to the inside of his Valentine's card. Write in there something keeping hold of the needle to help him see how much you love him, and let him see his car. When he pops a balloon, a reason pops out. Your children can help you come up with reasons (your youngest may not be able to articulate, but you can come up with some from his viewpoint I'm sure). They can help find the reasons, and throw/hand balloons to daddy. It's cheesy, but I bet your kids (at least the oldest) will remember that for a while (a car full of balloons, and popping? of course he will!). I ended up getting some manly looking box (dark wood with a cool clasp) for less than $10 at Walmart, and he stores all his "reasons" in there.
You can do kinda anything for the dinner, depending on what you WANT to do. What we've done so far is have a sitter watch the kids and we have a nice dinner (I usually cook smothered filet mignon topped with gorgonzola, garlic red potato salad, and beautiful marinated green beans, with an apple cheesecake for dessert) and have a "date night" downtown or at a jazz club. This year though: husband lost his wedding ring in the water while we were swinging our son around at the beach. We searched and searched, but it was GONE, swallowed up in the mud and water. Well, he works with the public and I really want him to have a darn ring on his finger!!! So I told him what I want for V-day this year is for him to get a new ring. That blows any budget we'd have for going out and a babysitter!
So this year since my boys will be 4 and 15 months, I'm going to make Valentine's day a Lady and the Tramp theme. It's romantic in a kid way! It's sweet, lol. We'll watch the movie and have popcorn and all that at some point during the day. For dinner, I'm going to make spaghetti and meatballs, salad, and bread like in the movie (and also, it's a dinner the kids love too, and super cheap). For dessert, I'm going to make cheesecake (husband's favorite) but top it with strawberries so it's pretty and red. My youngest can play with dad while my oldest can help me cook (he likes to cook). We'll play some Italian music so we can recreate the movie (no rolling meatballs with your nose though, please!). After dinner, we have our special CD that we made together that we can dance to. The kids love to dance along with us since they love music, and I think it's good for them to see that mom and dad love each other and like to dance. We can be romantic, and still family friendly, right? :) Well, that's all I've got for this time of night. (I'm up "on guard" super late for us, because husband and oldest have this flu). :(

I would go to the dollar store and look for some crafts to make hearts out of. Use glue sticks, glitter....You can make a mailbox out of an old cereal box; just close it up, and decorate it with red/pink construction paper, and put a slit on top and after you all make your valentines, you can put it in the make believe mail box. :-) Your kiddos are too young to do something like this perhaps, but it's a good idea for the future. You can create a homemade Valentine Gift Card for dad and put on there, "Good for one Massage". Or something like that that he would love. Make cookies together and have a food fight! FUN yes, but of course a mess to clean. But the memories will be forever. ;)
Hope this helps you. Enjoy your special day with your family. :;-) I'm going to try some of these ideas myself.

We always have a fun candle lit family dinner with Valentine paper goods, heart shaped homemade pizza, red juice, a heart cake with raspberries and Valentine favors at each of the kids' places. It's pretty easy to pull off and so fun, especially since the kids look forward to it as a family tradition. I was just looking on familyfun.com and there are tons of easy ideas for crafts, food and gifts. The homemade Valentine's cards are really cute.

How about heart shaped pancakes for breakfast?