Happy Valentine's Day!

Those of you who know me know I love to throw a party! I love holidays, birthdays or any other reason to let my creative juices flow or to scour pinterest for some fun ideas.  Valentine's Day is one of those holidays I love.  I love planning a fun day for our family and having each of their little love tanks filled up on this special day.  I had a crazy few days leading up to Valentine's Day and felt very unprepared for for the ideas that were swirling around in my head! I woke up Tuesday morning because I had no idea how I was going to get every thing done and ready based on what my day looked like ... it was looking a little crazy.  I planned to make the kids their heart pancakes with strawberries and whip cream for breakfast.  I got out of the shower and Shane was already at the table with a bowl of cereal and said he just really wanted cereal today.  Instead of making a big deal about it I thought to myself ... just let it go! So instead of the fun Valentine's Day pancakes that were planned we all enjoyed a bowl of cereal together. We had a nice, calm morning of cereal verses the craziness of a big Valentine's Day breakfast.  

I had a day of running, appointments and errands.  I finished finding fun little gifts for the kids for Valentine's Day and finished up grocery shopping for our Valentine's Dinner. I had about 30 minutes to pull a fun Valentine's Day after school snack together.  Instead of the homemade cookies or cupcakes I had envisioned I found some yummy store made cookies. The kids loved it when they got home and they didn't even care that I didn't make the cookies. 

To add to the craziness of the day I had to teach a class that I teach once a month and it just happened to fall on Valentine's Day.  It was from 4-5:30.  In my mind I thought things would be a little hectic but I could get our dinner pulled together quickly after I was done teaching.  As I was walking out the door to teach my class Eric said to me that he was going to bring the kids somewhere and was going to cook dinner for us while I was at my class so to hurry home.  My first reaction was "oh man but I have a fun family dinner planned!" Then quickly I had some sense knocked into me as I once again thought to myself ... let it go! Seriously who wouldn't love their husband to tell them he had a place for the kids and was cooking dinner ... what was I thinking.  I quickly let all the plans in my head go right out the door and embraced what was to come.  

I came home to beautiful flowers .....

and a wonderful smelling house ...

and a yummy looking dinner.

Eric made some amazing seafood pasta and stuffed mushrooms.  We enjoyed our time just the two of us in our home at our table.  What a nice treat on Valentine's Day!

The kids came home happy and before I could blink Shane had his pj's on.  So we finished our evening with letting go of the planned out family dinner complete with a decorated Valentine's Day table.  We will just save it all for next year :)!  The kids were excited when they saw a special bag of Valentine's Day treats for each of them. 

Life doesn't always go as planned and tonight is one of those nights that I am glad it didn't.  I would have missed out on just being with my husband and kids today if I would have been caught up in the business of the day.  I love making holidays fun and planning fun food and activities but I am learning that when it no longer becomes fun and is stressful that I have lost the love and the motivation behind it.  It was a good reminder today about keeping my eyes on what is important and not getting caught up in the details.  I love how God continues to mold and refine me as a wife and mom as our family grows.  I have a feeling there will be a lot more letting go of expectations that I put on myself as our family continues to grow. 

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

On Saturday we decided to spend the day as a family and celebrate Valentine's Day! My morning was started with a Starbucks coffee in bed. If only every morning could start like that! Then we were treated with a big yummy breakfast by Eric.

At the breakfast table Eric had a rose for all of his girls ....

and a puppy for Shane. Shane named him Jo Jo McDonald!

We spent the day just hanging out together. We had a Candy Land tournament. Emma came out on top and I finished up in 5th place getting schooled by the other 4 members of my family.

Eric and I also had a Pinochle tournament.

Emma sported some heart socks for Valentine's Day!

We enjoyed a nice dinner together.

The kids loved drinking out of real glasses with fun straws!

Eric cooked up some yummy pasta with scallops and mushrooms!

Alexa is our pasta eater! She was loving life!

Shane thought the strawberries with whip cream were pretty tasty.

Emma was all smiles with her lip gloss and sparkly powder!

The girls got their Valentine's pj's on. Can you guess who had their pants rolled up? We had such a nice day just hanging out and spending time as a family. We didn't even break out the Valentine's aprons to do our Valentine's Day baking. We decided to spend our afternoon just relaxing. It sure was a great day!

Hope you have a wonderful Valentine's 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!