The Evolution of the Conversation Heart

I'm tipping my hand a bit by blogging about the little Valentine's treat we made today for Logan's music class, but I wanted to share. First off, I want to preface this post by saying that I hate conversation hearts, I happen to think they are disgusting. However, apparently A LOT of people like these candies, because the company that originally starting making them in the 1800s, NECCO, produces 8 billion of the candies a year, and they typically sell out in just six weeks. As a side note, when I googled these candies just to get an idea of the history, I had to smile upon discovering that Necco is the company that started the candies. I have a happy memory of Marsha loving the Necco wafers....funny how something little can make you miss a person so. Despite the fact I don't particularly like them, I promise to let Logan try them one day (when they aren't a choking hazard)...she may take after her Grandma Marsha.

In any case, in using these today for our little project, I discovered just how funny some of the printed messages are. Apparently the company takes suggestions for these each year and updates them accordingly (for all you very curious folks, you can click here for the complete history from Necco).

"Tweet Me" and "My Boo" ?!?

I like the classics - "Love Me" and "Love You" much better than the trendy conversation hearts.

So, this was a pretty simple project - just required pretzel twists, hershey kisses and the aforementioned conversation hearts. I got the idea here (along with many others that are running around in my head now).
Warmed the pretzels and kisses in the oven for a few minutes until the kisses were soft. And then, simply pressed the conversation hearts in. While cute, unfortunately these aren't the most kid-friendly treats. Looks like we will have to whip up some heart-shaped sugar cookies for the little ones (and let their parents enjoy the conversation hearts :-). Logan helped me by pressing conversation hearts into Play-doh.

And then spent some time "painting." By the way, these old-fashioned paint with water books are ideal for this age. Low, low mess and very gratifying for the little one.