Valentine's Day

I mentioned before that I'm not a huge Valentine's fan.  However, I AM a fan of surprising my children.  February 14th was the perfect excuse to sprinkle a few little surprises throughout their day.

In the morning each child found a little basket of Valentine's Day goodies waiting for them where their breakfast should be.  Nothing too spectacular.  A few treats, a few little toys, and a sandwich cutter (a dinosaur shaped one for Hunty, and a heart-shaped one for Stinks) which we used at lunch.

I made pink, heart-shaped, chocolate-chip pancakes for breakfast served with heart-shaped strawberries, and red applesauce.  They were only okay.  Kind of dry.  I don't think the kids cared though, so that's good.

During the day the doorbell rang, and left on the doorstep were some surprises from Grammy Char-Char (a little playmobil castle for Tralee, and a magnetic building set for Hunty).  They played with those for a bit, then we made sandwiches (peanut butter and honey for Hunty, and a cheese sandwich for Tralee) using their new cutters.

We also spent a good portion of our Valentine's day making Tralee's Valentines for her pre-school class the next day.  I found the idea in Family Fun magazine, and thought it was pretty cute.  We purchased a pack of animal figurines (found at any craft store), made a cute card themed for each animal, and used a hole-punch and twisty-ties to hold the animal to the card.  They turned out pretty cute, and Tralee and I had a lot of fun decorating them.

For dinner we bought a heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's, I made a spinach and strawberry salad, and we had a nice little dinner together.

Later at night I watched a friend's children for her so she and her hubby could have a Valentine's date (Jim was still out-of-town, so we had no hot V-day plans).  My friend watched Tralee and Hunter the the night Jim came home from his business trip.  It was the perfect trade-off, and I ate an uninterrupted(!!!!!!!!!) sushi dinner with my main squeeze the night after Valentine's Day.  It was so lovely!!  We also went out for ice cream.  YUM!

Tralee supervising the two-year-olds

They were pretty cute together.

See what I mean?

The day after Jim came home, he sent Stinks and I to a salon to get our nails done.  It was super fun.  Tralee had all the ladies giggling at her precociousness.  I love that little girl.  I also love my little boy.  I also love my hubby.  I'm lucky.  I guess Valentine's day isn't so bad after all.