Valentine's Day 2015

I tried really hard to be prepared in advance for Valentine's day, I knew what was coming the week before, and I knew we wouldn't have much time to prepare after.

On our "To Do" list was class Valentine's and the dreaded Valentine's box.

Am I the only one who doesn't love the Valentine box?

Thankfully Samantha wanted to create her box all on her own, Hannah wanted to use her box from last year, and Hunter would have been happy with anything, but was really excited about his football box.

I really love when my kids make things easy!!

We had planned on having our traditional Valentine's dinner on Friday since Rob was flying to Paris on Valentine's day, but he was very busy trying to finish everything up at work, and Samantha was invited to a Galentine's party, so we opted for a Valentine's breakfast on Valentine's day instead.

I think we are going to make breakfast a yearly tradition along with our usual dinner, it was so good.

It was not the perfect Valentine's I had pictured in my head, but for what we had to work with I think it was perfect. I sure do love this family of mine!!

Valentine's Day

The night before Valentine's day Hannah asked me if I would be kissing Dad a lot tomorrow because it was Valentine's day, I told her of course I would be. My kids think it is so gross when we kiss, and we find it hilarious, so we try to kiss as much as possible when the kids are watching.

Because really we wouldn't be doing our job as a parents if we didn't.

Hunter told Rob he should ask me to be his Valentine because we are married so I have to say yes. But then he swooped in that morning and beat his Dad to the punch and asked if I would be his Valentine.

Of course I said yes.

Hannah asked her friend Jacob to be her Valentine at school. They were supposed to write Valentine's to someone they love so they wrote them to each other. I haven't read the one that Hannah wrote, but Jacob's was adorable. His Mom and I had a good laugh about the entire thing.

We have also been hard at work all week making beautiful store bought Valentine's for their classmates and elaborate boxes for their school parties. Samantha is in 5th grade and this is the first time we have had to make boxes and part of me wishes it was the last. But they turned out really cute and the kids were happy so it was worth the effort.

Rob and I had big plans for a romantic dinner but later changed our minds and decided on a night in with the kids. For dinner we made steak, twice baked potatoes, green beans, rolls, and chocolate fondue. It was delicious!! And then since it was Valentine's day I made them all sit down and watch a sappy chick flick of my choosing - Ever After. Those boys of mine sure do know how to whine and complain.

In the end it was a very fun day and I am thankful I was able to spend it with the four loves of my life.

Valentine's Day

We decided a few years ago it was not worth the headache of trying to go out and fight the crowds, plus having to try and find a baby sitter, so we decided to make Valentine's Day a family holiday, and honestly I love it more this way.

The kids woke up to a fun new Valentine's shirt and a stuffed animal. (I searched everywhere for a shirt for Bubba and came up empty handed, thankfully he didn't care and really loved his red Lego Batman shirt)

They could not wait to get to school for parties and to exchange Valentine's. Samantha chose Monster High, Hunter Lego Ninjago, and Hannah Lalaloopsy.

Despite Pinterest's best effort at making me feel like a lame Mom, I stayed sane and stuck with the cheap store bought cards.

That night for dinner we had the best Chicken Alfredo, I even added some artichoke hearts and the kids didn't even notice, Samantha informed me it was her new second favorite meal.

Nothing will ever take the place of Salmon in that girl's heart.

We tried to save room because as soon as dinner was cleaned up we pulled out the chocolate fondue. We did this last year and had so much fun we decided to make it a tradition.

BEST. IDEA. EVER.

I hope your Valentine's day was as delicious as our was!!

Valentine's Day

We had the best couple of days celebrating Valentine's day. We have decided holiday's are always so much more fun when we get to celebrate them with our sidekicks.

This year we had a Valentines themed Family Home Evening. We started with heart shaped french toast for dinner. We also talked about how important it is to show each other lots of love, I had cut out paper hearts and we wrote what we loved about each other on them and then hung them on their bedroom doors. For dessert we decorated heart shaped sugar cookies. I think next year we will all draw a name and decorate a cookie for that person to help us spread the love.

The sidekicks were so excited for their Valentine's parties, but no one was more excited than Hannah, she was counting down the days until her party and couldn't wait to show me all the Valentine's she received.

That night we had a red and pink dinner, we haven't done this in a a couple years and I was excited to really get the tradition going again. We ate spaghetti, pink heart shaped biscuits, and red jello.

We also decided to start a new tradition and have chocolate fondue for dessert, this was such a hit and I am excited to add it to our Valentine's Day dinner. 

When we were out shopping for our fondue goodies we found a dragon fruit and thought it would be fun to try, it was okay but didn't have much flavor, but at least we can say we have eaten a dragon fruit.

I have to admit that although I didn't get around to doing the big ideas in my head I think this was the perfect day. I love that we are starting traditions that work for us and we all love.

Random Happenings

Hunter asked if I would read him Harry Potter, I was pretty excited because Samantha didn't have any interest in reading them, I even tried bribing her but that didn't work. Rob still doesn't know how he feels about Hunter liking Harry Potter, but I love it and so does Hunter.

Hunter also had his 100th day of school, they sent a note home encouraging students to dress like they were 100. When I mentioned it to Hunter he said "you want me to dress like I am dead?". I tried to convince him that wasn't the case but he decided he didn't want to dress up.

There is a boy in school who has a crush on Samantha. I asked her if he was cute and she informed me he is gross because he picks his nose. And so it begins!!

(I was telling Rob all this and he said he didn't even want to think about Samantha and boys because pretty soon it would be out of control)

Samantha has been showing an interest in reading again and usually has a book close by, I can't tell you how happy this makes me. She brought home the Invention of Hugo Cabert and I was impressed with how big it was. She told me she only got it because there are lots of pictures so it is not too big.

We sat down to address the sidekicks Valentines, this year I decided to be super lazy and buy box Valentines. I let the sidekicks pick out whatever ones they wanted. Samantha picked out Monster High, no surprise there, Hunter picked out Transformers, and Hannah surprisingly enough picked out Tinker Bell, I thought for sure she would follow her sisters lead and choose Monster High.