Valentine's Day 2018

Valentine's Day

We celebrated Valentine's Day on two different days this year. We had our family Valentine's Dinner the Sunday before Valentine's Day and then celebrated a bit on the actual day as well. We have had so much going on with all of the kids every single night of the week including Sunday nights which was extremely annoying; so that it was VERY DIFFICULT to even squeeze in our family dinner this year.

I also neglected to decorate until about a week before Valentine's Day but it all worked out since I didn't take it down until the last week of February. This month has just been a wild one.

Reilly came over that Sunday night and we didn't go to Ailey's New Beginnings and we did our usual Valentine's Day feast...with homemade pizza. My family loves this so much! We make our own dough and have all the toppings and then they just create away. We used to make them heart-shaped but now they just want to make LARGE pizzas. Ha ha. We also made our favorite holiday salad...we usually make it for Christmas...but this year we made it for Valentine's Day instead...Spinach salad with strawberries, red onion, feta, candied pecans, and with a homemade balsamic dressing. It was delicious. I opted not to eat pizza and ate tempura shrimp instead. Yum. This was all washed down with icy cold strawberry crush.

I forgot to take a picture after the table was completely set with treats and gifts and everything. This was when it was half way done. Not sure who took this picture. But glad I have it. Yes, that is cereal on the table. Reilly requested Special K with Red Berries instead of candy this year. :) All of the love notes are my favorite! I love that tradition. It seems that we have had an extra amount of bickering going on lately between the kids so it was nice to hear what they loved about each other. Tyler and I opted to exchange our gifts on the actual holiday.

This was our dessert and it was FABULOUS!! A huge platter of cream puffs and strawberries drizzled with chocolate and powdered sugar. So good. We had a fun family night together...lots of laughs...and dancing. Oh yes. It was pretty great!

On the actual day...Bryn was ready to go in her pink and red outfit. Again, no picture. I am slacking this year. She had found some awesome scratch-and-sniff Valentines to hand out to her classmates that were exactly like the scratch-and-sniff stickers that my sisters and I used to collect in the 80s. I loved those! This year she didn't have to make an elaborate Valentine Box. Hallelujah. Have I mentioned how over elementary school projects I am? This was true last year and it is even more so this year because Bryn has had an absolute ton of elaborate and time-consuming projects and more are on the way. Ugh.

I made traditional red lunches for the kids. Stapled shut so that they could be surprised. They really love this. Sometimes I wonder why I even started this tradition...like this year...when I totally forgot to make them and had to get up at 4 am to put them together when I remembered. That is love for you. But the kids love them so much and look forward to them every year so I will continue. :)

This was also the first elementary school Valentine's Day party since the beginning of Valentine's Day parties that I didn't attend nor volunteer at. I was heading out of town later that week and just couldn't squeeze it in. Well...no one died. Bryn did fine and had fun without me there. Who knew? I guess I can let that guilt go.

Tyler brought me my favorite tulips, a box of hand selected Mrs. See's chocolates, a gift card for a mani/pedi, and the world's sweetest valentine card. He did well! I love that guy!

Ailey was complaining that morning about how Valentine's Day isn't fun in middle school. They don't do anything special and she didn't want to see all the girls with boyfriends walking around with their flowers and candy while she wasn't getting anything. Well...what did she find stuck in the slots of her locker that morning but a long stemmed hot pink rose!! A secret admirer!! She decided Valentine's Day in middle school wasn't so bad after all!!

That night the kids ALL HAD A BUNCH OF ACTIVITIES!! Ugh... school and church activities don't care about parents and Valentine's day dates apparently. Tyler did bring home Taco Bell so that I didn't have to cook and we ate it together in the kitchen by the light of a red heart-shaped candle while we waited to pick up the kids from all of their activities. Romantic. Ha ha. Tyler's birthday is the week before Valentine's Day and we usually do our big celebrating then but this year Tyler was sick on his birthday and then all of the rest of us got it and I was sick on Valentine's Day. We got gypped this year.

But despite our crazy holiday... I couldn't ask for a better Valentine!! I love that man of mine.

Picture taken by my friend, Cary, at the Mad Hatter show in September. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!!