Loving It!

I love Valentine's Day.  I love pink and red.  I love making Valentines for people.  I love decorating the house and making heart shaped food.  I don't love all the people complaining all over facebook about it being a marketing scam.  I refuse to feel guilty for going totally overboard on a totally made up holiday.  Last year I almost skipped out and just couldn't resist.  This year, I started planning in January.

I had agreed to go up and run hills with a girlfriend for a run that morning (in the flat valley of Phoenix, that's a half hour field trip away), so I knew I wouldn't be home when my kids woke up.  Hence why I spent the previous night cutting waffles and strawberries into hearts. My sweet husband sent me picture of the breakfast feast as we were driving back.

Why yes, Sadie is wearing a leotard and Nate has his shirt from the night before on.  Wednesday night was insanely busy and Dustin and I both had to be somewhere at 6:45. I told them all to go to bed at 7 and had Ellie read a book after she put Luke down.  I came home to find Sadie asleep, still in her gymnastic clothes and flip flops and Luke in bed with no pants.  Successful evening of parenting for sure.

Our Christmas Elf brought the Edible arrangement to go with their waffles, which made breakfast even more festive.  What?  Your elf doesn't bring gifts in February?  Either did ours until Sadie was climbing in my laundry cabinets and found him Tuesday night.  I was just sure he had come to visit us for Valentine's day.

Each of our kids gets Valentines from us.  I buy for the boys and Dustin buys for the girls.  Sadie and Ellie got jewelry.

I got Nate a giant box of chocolate and a dinosaur for Luke.

Once they were out of the house, I showered, put on my new Valentine's Day outfit courtesy of my husband (remember how I got him nothing??) and got to baking.

(can you tell I didn't want to pose for this picture?)

I invited over just a few of my girlfriend's whose husbands had been traveling for a GALentine's brunch.  Berries, bran muffins, mini quiches and pain au chcocolat.

After that Luke and I went off to deliver more Valentines to friends, where Luke would announce: Happy Candy Day!  An apt description because when the kids came home from school pretty much every card had candy attached (and I'm no betters -- ours had candy too).  I want the school to institute a no candy policy and maybe we can go back to the days of being happy with cute cards and thoughtful notes.

I also had to reset the table so it was all ready for our fancy family dinner (I'm trying to pound it into their heads that Valentine's Day is more about family than having a boyfriend or a girlfriend) complete with mustaches.

And Valentine floats for dessert -- thank you pinterest.

After dessert we took the kids out to "love bomb" a few people.  Is there anything better than a day with your family?