I found out last night that my sister needs me for a few days, and that is not trivial:  it involves hopping on a plane and making sure that my family here in Iowa is going to be OK for a few days.  Thankfully the boys are old enough, and Mark is capable enough, that none of us has a problem with me leaving, there are just DETAILS.

Before Joe knew that I was leaving, he says to me “I need to bring cookies on Monday for the Valentine’s Day party.”  Which he quickly followed up with “I just found out today, so don’t be mad at me for not telling you sooner.”  I wasn’t actually mad, because, heck, at  least he was telling me on Thursday, instead of Sunday.  He looked confused when I had to tell him that he needed to discuss that with Mark.  Lucky Mark.  Gets to bake cookies Sunday afternoon.

About 5 minutes later, it dawned on me that they both needed Valentine’s cards to pass out on Monday.

Ugh.

I sure hope this is the last year for that.  We have refused to buy cards for the last few years, relying instead on printable Valentines that Mom scrounges up off the Internet.  Unfortunately, finding cards that 11 year old boys are willing to give to their classmates is nigh unto impossible.

Need frilly, pretty, vintage, cutesy, little-kid-ish, sappy, etc, etc, etc? Yeah, the Internet has those in spades.

Will ended up deciding these Zebras were acceptable.  I think maybe we’ve used those before.  Joe decided that the bottom two on this page were acceptable, so I downloaded that image, cut out the sappy ones and made extras of the others, and he’s going to be good to.

I also liked these and these, oh and these penguins.  All of which are from the same designer as the Zebras.  See, she’s making them for HER boys to give to their classmates, so she has an idea of what a boy might actually be willing to give away.

And that was the extent of what I could find this morning in the 5 minutes I had between when I was reminded that I still had to find something and when the boys left to go skiing.***  They were standing here looking at them, saying “I don’t know” and I”m saying “DECIDE, YOU MUST DECIDE NOW, or I’ll pick something really frilly and girly.”

Of course, I still had to print and cut them and I still have to pack and oh my.  Why am I still sitting here writing this blog post?

Send me some good travel vibes and  also some positive energy to my sister.  She needs it.

Suzanne

***Yes, it’s a Friday, no they aren’t playing hooky from school:  it’s a Professional Development day.  Thankfully, Mark had already planned to take the day off to go skiing.