February 8-14 // Sparrow Post, Valentine Scavenger Hunt, Marbled Stationery, The Risky Investment of Love, and More!
Plenty of ideas to show your loved ones how much they mean to you ❤️
Hello! This week we have lots of ideas to help you make those around you feel loved. Life hack: seeing the people in your life as gifts makes you happier 😉
Here’s what we’ve got in this week’s email:
Activities: Valentine Scavenger Hunt, Marbled Stationery, Sparrow Post
Parenting Pep Talk: The Risky Investment of Love
Acts of Thoughtfulness: Post-It Heart Mirror, Love On Someone Forgotten
Monthly Challenge: No-Spend February
Grownup Book Club: Thirst by Scott Harrison
Older Kid Book Club: A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park (great for grownups, too)
Picture Books: Sugar Cookies by Amy Krause Rosenthal, Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse, Animally by Lynn Parrish Sutton, and A Time to Keep by Tasha Tudor
Activities
Valentine Scavenger Hunt
We made something for you again! We found a list of cute Valentine's puns and adapted them into little cards with graphics so you could have some cute valentines to hide around your house for your kids to find! There are 16. (And, knowing how kids are, they will probably want to do the activity again and again and take turns being the hider and finders. Ours did.)
You can download the PDF here:
These are the cute Valentines! ⬇️
Marbled Shaving Cream Stationery
This sensory activity is super satisfying…albeit messy. Don’t wear your best clothes. If you’re allowing toddlers to join the fun, consider doing this activity outside or in the bathtub.
Spray shaving cream into a container or baking tray. Drop some dots of food coloring. Swirl with a toothpick or fork. (Kids of all ages love that part.) Then press down paper and envelopes into the shaving cream! Stiff, watercolor paper works best.
Pick up the paper and transfer to a towel or somewhere that can handle shaving cream. Scrape off the foam with a knife and look at your beautiful, unique artwork! Bonus: it smells great 😌
One of the things you can do with this cool new paper is cutting out hearts. Fold the paper in half then cut out half a heart shape. You can easily turn upside-down hearts into envelopes for your Sparrow Post, too! (See below.)
Sparrow Post
In her 1977 book A Time to Keep, Tasha Tudor shared vivid, dreamy illustrations depicting growing up in a creative household through the seasons. For February, she talked about how a family tradition was to create a little post office with which to ship tiny valentines to their dolls and pets. You can read all about it on the Tasha Tudor website and find templates here.
We put together some graphics for you to cut out and add to your post office and tiny-mail, if you choose. Yep, even tiiiiiny stamps 😉 These hearts, when folded correctly, make lovely little envelopes, don’t they?
We created our Sparrow Post with a cardboard box, scissors, colored paper, and glue. We were cut out the bottom of the box and made a slit in the side of the roof to receive mail. When we pick up the box, all the tiny envelopes are waiting for us and ready to be delivered to little lovies.
As you can see here, we made hearts with our swirled stationery, then folded them into envelopes. You simply fold in the sides of the heart, then turn it upside and fold the heart’s point towards the center, then the top. Here are more detailed diagrams. It’s hard to do with tiny pieces of paper, so if you want it to look more perfect, you could use a different template such as Tasha Tudor’s.
Parenting Pep Talk: The Risky Investment of Love
One time my grandpa looked at me, surrounded by all my little kids and feeling a little overwhelmed as usual, and said, “Hope, you are a very rich woman. Do you know that?” That really stuck with me, and I own it now. I am very rich.
On the days when parenting or difficult relationships feel more draining than they’re worth, we need a perspective shift like that.
Studies show that sad movies make us feel happier than comedies do. Sometimes if we think about what we have that could be lost, it fills us with gratitude. Somberness and lament have a lot of value, surprisingly even for the sake of our own joy. When life is so short and uncertain, discontentment and bitterness are really a waste of time.
(To those of you who have experienced serious loss: please know I don’t take your experience lightly. Those of us who haven’t had to grieve something that heavy have much to learn from you.)
Have you ever thought about how much money you would pay (and fundraise for) to get one more hug from your kid if you knew it was the last one? Could you possibly put a dollar sign on it? How much are morning footsteps, ticklish giggles, heart-to-heart conversations—or even a baby’s cry—worth? How much would you give if you knew you would only get one last kiss from your beloved, or one last conversation by the fireplace?
Love for our kids or spouse isn’t the only kind of important love. In The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis talks about the different kinds of love, acknowledging that choosing to love is a risk, but it’s worth it. I’ve referenced this quote so many times that I know it’s on page 121 in my copy:
“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket – safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.” -C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Though the demands on our lives and the fears and pains we have to bear are burdensome, we become better people when we love, don’t we?
Have you ever viewed love as a risky investment? An entrepreneur is, by definition, a person who takes risks in their quest to create wealth. Whether you chose to have children and other people in your life or not, and whatever your family looks like, you have taken risks in order to live a rich life.
You might be driving a minivan instead of a Maserati, but right now, in this very moment, you have people in your life that are worth more than billions.
Help them feel like they’re worth more than billions this week.
Act of Thoughtfulness: Love on Someone Who Might Be Forgotten
Whether you believe Valentine’s Day is a holiday worth celebrating or not, the reality is that it’s a really hard day for some people. Maybe it’s hard for you. Who is someone who might be lonely on this day who could use a surprise invitation to brunch, or a small vase of flowers dropped off at her doorstep? Who is someone your kids could make Valentine’s for? (Full-size Valentines, not the Sparrow Post version 😉)
Another idea is to write things you love about your spouse and/or your kids on Post-It’s and arrange them into a heart shape on your mirror. You might be surprised by how much this act of thoughtfulness changes you and makes you more grateful for that person.
Monthly Challenge: No-Spend February
This month we are being extra intentional with our spending so we can be more aware of where our money is going (for example: no spending on “wants,” local spending only, or no spending on [addictive habit], etc.) so we can instead use it for things we’re most passionate about (paying off debt, helping out a friend, giving to a trusted charity.)
Here’s a graphic you can share in your Stories to track how many days you’re able to stick with your goals and invite others to be intentional with their spending, too!
Book Clubs
This month we recommend reading Thirst by Scott Harrison for grownups, A Long Walk to Water by Kim Sue Park for older kids (and also grownups), and Nya’s Long Walk by Kim Sue Park for younger kids. Lack of access to clean water is a really preventable problem, and it would be awesome if we could figure out how to free up some of our resources to help solve this global crisis.
Picture Books
Sugar Cookies by Amy Krause Rosenthal and illustrated by Jane Dyer is part of a series we love that teaches kids different words such as “trustworthy,” “respect,” and “honest” in the context of cookies.
Mama, Do You Love Me? by Barbara M. Joosse and illustrated by Barbara Lavallee is an adorable and sweet story from an Inuit perspective that answers the question every kid (and adult) has: “Do you love me? Will you still love me if I mess up?” The mother answers honestly and warmly.
Animally by Lynn Parish Sutton and illustrated by Hazel Mitchell is a cute book about traits from different animals that are reflected in our own love for our kids. (Another warm book about animals and parental affection is Time for Bed by Mem Fox.)
A Time to Keep by Tasha Tudor is a lovely book depicting whimsical family moments from each month. It not only feels like it was written from another time, but another dimension! Birthday cakes down the river…who does that? Regardless, it’s sweet to read together and might give you some inspiration. It’s how we got the idea for Sparrow Post!
If you would like more picture book recommendations, the newsletter Can We Read? has lots and lots of ideas and reviews, even specifically for Valentine’s Day!
From Our Hearts
Dear friends,
May your heart be more sensitive than ever to who in your life needs love.
May affection for the people in your life make your heart swell with joy, and may you see those people as gifts.
May the words in your home be full of encouragement and warmth.
May you feel full and secure, ready to pour out love on those who don’t.
May you become the kind of person who isn’t afraid to risk being vulnerable for the sake of love.
May your kids grow in kindness and thoughtfulness, even in little things like making valentines for pets and dolls.
We are praying these things for you.
Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts
P.S. Here’s a screensaver!
Hope, this is such a good issue!
I've been obsessed with the Sparrow Post since the moment I heard about it -- I don't envy the life Tasha Tudor built for herself (well, except her enormous garden) but the Sparrow Post gets me every time.
Sugar Cookies is such a gem -- all the Cookies books are.
And thanks so much for the the shoutout ❤️