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