Happy St. Valentine's Day

Another attempt at some intentional "fun" with the kids that was just slightly sabotaged by the children ahead of time.  (I feel like I am channeling my husband when he complains about the "mandatory fun" events the Air Force often makes them attend in an effort to make sure morale is as high as possible.) 

I planned to make heart shaped lollipops for the children using some candy melts leftover from Christmas. Alan picked up the candy mold last night on his way home from work. (Hey, I said I planned it, I didn't say how far in advance I planned it.)  This afternoon I went to the cupboard to pull out the candy melts that I knew were in there.  Um, at least they were supposed to be in there.  Some child decided to eat half of them.  Apparently if you take food out of an open package and just leave a few crumbs or one last cookie or one last chip or the 3 last candy melts, no one will be the wiser.  Apparently.  Never mind that the bag for the candy melts was tied closed and you untied it.  Never mind that I am not an idiot and can actually see that something is missing and know no one had permission to snatch it.  At least they have finally figured out not to open factory sealed packages themselves so the red candy melts were still there, but all of the white ones were gone.  Except 3.

the melted candy

Sigh.  So after I griped and grumbled about children taking things without permission and declared that when it was time to start handing out the lollipops, I would start with the shortest children first since you have to be taller than 3 feet to be able to reach into the plastic box on the second shelf of the cabinet over the microwave (yes, I did actually say all of this to the kids while they rolled their eyes and gave each other the Mom is off her rocker look), I started melting candy and filling the molds.

the filled molds

The hardest part of this treat was that I only had one set of molds so I had to make 3 batches.  Each batch must sit in the fridge for 15 minutes to cool enough to set so it took about an hour to make 10 lollipops.  If you get all the supplies from the bulk bins or on sale, you can make these for your kids $2 or so, not including the molds.  The molds are often just a couple bucks (this one was $1.59 but I have seen them frequently in the dollar bins at Target and similar stores).  The molds are obviously reusable so for just a few bucks a year, you can treat your kids to something new.

the finished product

 Here's hoping your attempts to find joy with your children today went a tad better than mine did.  Let's just say I went grocery shopping alone when Alan got home and treated myself to a drink (carbonated only as I don't "drink").