Happy Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays. I wrote about it before but I know it is largely because my mom made it such a special day when we were growing up. We always ate in the formal dining room with the table set in red and pink. We had a special dinner and it was a day we looked forward to every year.

I loved seeing the kids excited about our celebration as Valentine's Day approached. They always wonder what we are doing or eating and I usually try to make it a surprise. We started the morning with heart shaped pancakes topped with strawberries and of course whip cream. The girls got the first batch of pancakes as they had to get to school!

The boys were not far behind after the girls got dropped off at school. Shane loved the whip cream and the pink milk. Max was pretty satisfied with his pancakes.

I had a fun Valentine's Day treat ready for the kids when they got home from school!

This summer I did a cooking class with one of our pastor's wives who is an amazing cook. She had a theme each night. We cooked a number of recipes together and then sat down together and ate them. It was so much fun, the fellowship was wonderful, we learned a lot and of course the food was yummy. One night the theme was a Romantic Two - Some Dinner. We made a number of Italian recipes that night. I decided to pull out some of these recipes for our Valentine's Dinner. It was more like a Not so Romantic Six - Some Dinner but it was full of LOVE non the less. I made her homemade Caesar Dressing for our Caesar Salad, Parmesan Chicken Strips and her very yummy Garlic - Ricotta Sauce over heart pasta.

Max enjoyed his first Valentine's Day dinner around our table. He LOVED the pasta! We finally had to cut him off!

Daddy and his girls!

Emma and Shane enjoying their dinner.

The girls had fun making little notes/drawings for every one's plate that said "This is what I love about you ...."

We enjoyed some Cherry Chip Cupcakes for dessert.

The kids finished off the night opening a Valentine's Day gift.

Max was more into the tissue paper than the gift!

I have been wanting to put together these little "Let Me Count The Ways ..." books for the kids. I waited until the last minute but they got finished and printed for Valentine's Day. I had so much fun putting these together and the kids love looking at them. Each of their books has 10 things I love about each of them.

Here are a couple examples of the pages for my friends who were wondering how they turned out. If you are a digital scrapbooker they were fun and easy! I got the kit here.

When Eric and I crawled in bed we found these sweet little hearts from Alexa laying on our pillows!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails ...

1 Corinthians 13:4–8a

Happy May Day

May Day baskets are so much fun! We decided to hit the Dollar Store and put some little May baskets together for some of the kids friends.

The kids got busy labeling cups ....

sorting candy ....

filling cups ....

adding a little poem ....

finally making sure the cups were full and ready!

The kids had so much fun going from door to door ...

and then jumping back in the van before they were caught. After a few stops they decided they would rather stay at the door and talk to their friends rather than run.

Happy May Day

Valentine's Day Fun

We had a fun filled Valentine's Day weekend.  I love Valentine's Day and making it a special day for my kids.  When we were young my mom always made a fun dinner

 and made it a day we always looked forward too.  I wanted to follow suit and have it be a special day in our house too! 

We talk often in our house about Jesus' love for us and about loving others.  This holiday always seems to heighten the kid's awareness about showing love and the

different ways we can show our love to others.  Today as we were coming out of church Eric held the door for a man in a wheel chair who was on his way in.  Emma was walking beside Eric back to the van and said, "Daddy, that was sure nice of you!! That was showing love to that man wasn't it!"  I love it when they get it and see the importance of showing Christ's love to others around them. 

 

Eric and I were able to go out for Valentine's Day on Friday night!  We had a wonderful dinner and enjoyed our time reminiscing over the past year and talking/dreaming about our future. We especially are excited for our 8 day get away together to the beach in 5 weeks, not that we are counting!  I love it that we have made our relationship a priority and try to have date night every week.  I love it that I never tire of spending an evening alone with my husband! I love it that after 10 years of marriage we keep falling deeper in love with each other.  I love the way that we continue to grow as a couple as individuals and as parents. 

When we got home we had a little surprise waiting for us.  The kids had made us these darling cookies.  I think Shane was waiting to fall asleep until we got home so he could tell Eric that the 2 little cookies he made for us but the big one was his.  I have to brag on our sitter a little.  Tanea has been babysitting the kids for 5 1/2 years.  She is like part of the family and truly loves our kidos.  We feel so blessed that we can leave them with someone and not think twice about them or worry.  She often does something fun with them like bring hot cocoa, whip cream and sprinkles or like Friday night she brought stuff to make cookies.  To top it off she always has the house spotless.

   

Saturday morning we started Valentine's Day with some heart shaped pancakes with some of grammy's homemade raspberry jam  on them.  They were yummy! 

We had heart shaped sandwiches, strawberries and veggie chips for lunch.  

We also did some Valentine's Day baking! I love this picture of my girls with their missing front teeth! 

Shane doing some mixing! 

Adding a couple eggs! 

Look at that yummy heart brownie with cream cheese and strawberries!

Daddy brought his girls some flowers and Shane got a frog balloon!

We finished our Valentine's celebration with a Valentine's Day dinner with some chicken Parmesan, heart pasta and homemade apple sauce! 

We went around the table and told each person something we loved about each of them.  It was so cute to hear the kids tell each other the things they love about each other.  They would grin from ear to ear when it someone was telling them the things they loved about them.  Note to self ... we need to do this more than just on Valentine's Day! 

The kids opened a little gift!

We decorated cupcakes and ate some for dessert! 

Hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!  

Happy Valentine's Day

The girls had Valentine's Day parties at preschool this week. They had so much fun picking out Valentines and writing their little names on their friend's cards. It brought back Valentine's memories as a kid for me. I can remember deliberating over who I was going to give each card too especially as I got older. You had to be careful not to give the boys the mushy ones. It was fun to see them enjoy the process since there will be more Valentines to come in the years ahead. We also had fun putting together these little buckets "Filled With Love" for family, friends and teachers.




















The girls have Thursday through Monday off of preschool so we had decided to have a Valentine's Day Party with 9 of our little friends and their moms. We had to cancel the party because Eric had been in bed since Friday with Influenza A and I had a bit of a soar throat. Eric did make it back to work today but we didn't want to expose anyone to the germs that might be floating around the house. So instead we had a nice relaxing morning in our pj's. We had heart pancakes for breakfast and got to take some nice long bubble baths!



Dad came home today with some special little Valentines. Shane was all smiles when daddy handed him a balloon and the girls were giddy as daddy handed them each a rose. Alexa said, "This is the most beautiful flower I every got!" I think it is the first flower she ever got. Needless to say daddy made them feel pretty special!

When I was growing up my mom always made Valentine's Day special for us. She always decorated the table fun, we had a special meal and there was always a special Valentine's day present on our plate. Thanks mom for making it special!! I always looked forward to Valentine's Day and want to carry that tradition on in our family. Today as Alexa and Emma were going down for naps Emma said, "Mom, are you going to make the table beautiful when we are sleeping!" It made me smile because already at 4 she knows that her mom likes to make Valentine's special for her too! The kids thought the heart pasta was pretty neat!

We ended the evening with some cake and opening a little gift!

Hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day!!!!

These three remain:

faith, hope and love.

But the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 13:13

Here Come the Disneyers

As we were getting our costumes on tonight Emma said, "Mom, I know what everyone is going to say!!" I said, "What are they going to say?" She said, "They are going to say here come the Disneyers." Not sure how to spell that since I'm pretty sure it's not a word :)!!!

The kids had fun tonight. We went to church to the Harvest Party. They had a great time playing games and getting candy. She was very excited about his candy. He would of preferred to sit and eat the candy after each game but his sisters kept him on this toes! We ended the night by visiting a couple houses in our neighborhood.

Hope you had a Happy Halloween!