Living Outside the Box: 14 Days of Love (day 1 & 2)

It's already February.......Valentine's Day will be here before we know it. I have to say Doug and I have been seriously lacking in the "show you how much I care" department. We use to always do little cute lovey things for each other. Then there was the move to Holland, a new baby, stress of life in a foreign country with a toddler, a move back and feeling like we were starting over. Let's just say we haven't had many date nights since Ella was born. (2 to be exact, and none over night somewhere!!)

So I decided that this year instead of Doug dishing out $$$$ for flowers and candy just for me I wanted to do something as a family and bring back some of that thoughtful effort that should go into Valentine's Day.

I have seen these envelopes you can put on the back of your children's chairs and leave them little notes leading up to Valentines Day, which is something I'd like to do once Ella is a bit older. This year I decided to twist the idea a bit to include all of us. I found little mailboxes at Targets for $1 each!! A few days later I came across an idea on a blog where a mom used the same mailboxes but attached them to thrift shop candle sticks (and here I thought I had been so original). I decided hers looked better and checked out our local crafts stores for a cheaper idea. At Michael's I found unfinished wooden candle stick holders. I bought a can of black spray paint and planned to paint them and then attach them to the mailboxes.But when I went to actually complete the project I thought I had gone crazy because I couldn't find my supplies! Come to find out Doug had taken the candlesticks to work with him to spray paint!!

With the help of my hubby we had the perfect set up for our 14 Days of Love (for the low, low cost of $15 total) !!

I found this free print online and already had a frame to put it in. It looked a little plain by itself so thanks to pinterest I found some other free printables but can't remember where so I can't share them with you.

The mailboxes were decorated with our first initial and I love how the setup turned out.

Ella loves looking for the flag to be up so she can see what is in her box. I spent about $15 each on Doug and Ella and was able to get 14 days worth of little valentines. Doug was given a budget of $20, but I'm not even sure he's going to use that much. So for around $50, what Doug would have spent on just flowers anyway.......we get 14 days of love at the Wilcox Household and some extra cute decorations to last year to year.

Here's a look into Day 1 and 2.

DAY 1