A Paleo Valentine's Day

I know that I'm almost a month late in posting this, but better late than never, right?  So, Valentine's Day.  A holiday built around treats.  Not quite like Halloween, but treats are still a big part of the picture.  We knew that Jack would get all kind of junk at his class party, which turned out to be an understatement.  If memory serves me correctly (I helped at the party), each kid got a cupcake, two different kinds of cookies, four pieces of licorice, a handful of goldfish, fruit snacks, a fun size candy bar and a fruit rollup.  This is in addition to the candy that their classmates gave them as part of their valentines.  Yikes!  Lucky for us, Jack forgets about candy the minute it's out of sight (in fact, he probably ate about 3 or 4 pieces of Halloween candy total), so we just dumped it in the trash the night and I never heard another word about it!

Since we did not want to contribute to the rise in childhood diabetes in America, I gave Jack the option of a couple of different none food valentines to give to his classmates.  And here is what he chose:

I found the free printable online and we grabbed some bugs (which were actually plastic cockroaches.  Nothing says "love" like a cockroach!) and bags at the dollar store.  The girls in the class weren't super jazzed about them, but they were a big hit with the boys.

For my loves, I made some homemade treats.  For B, I made these AMAZING chocolate covered caramel dates.  Seriously, so good.  And no sugar.  Well, there are natural sugars in the dates and honey technically.  We even had enough caramel left over to make a caramel apple.  Delicious!

For my little loves, I made our favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe and filled up some little mailboxes that I snagged for a buck each at Target.  (Sorry for the dark pictures of the treats.  I had to take them under the cover of darkness the night before...)  Now, this might not be a popular choice among parents, but I let our boys eat their cookies for breakfast that day.  When you think about what some kids are eating for breakfast though - donuts, pop tarts, Lucky Charms - a few paleo chocolate chip cookies are definitely a better choice.  The best choice out there? No.  But I'm perfectly fine with having a little fun once in a while.