Happy Valentine’s Day!
Before I write this post, I feel like I need to give a little disclaimer first. Valentine’s Day is one of those minor holidays that always seems to ignite a lot of strong feelings on whether or not it needs to be celebrated. I just want to put it out there that I believe everybody has a right to celebrate or not celebrate any of these holidays and you don’t need to judge everyone in the opposite camp. I personally think there’s a lot of drudgery in life and want to make occasions like Valentine’s Day special for my family. Why not give my kids another day filled with special memories? I always feel like I need to apologize to the rest of the world when I post pictures on days like this. Well, I’m not going to do it anymore. I’m not trying to brag or make anyone feel guilty. I just like to make days special when they can be. And gift giving is my love language, so all of these minor holidays are guaranteed to bring gifts. Deal with it. 🙂
I decided to make festive cinnamon rolls for breakfast. They don’t look that appetizing!! I bought myself pretty long lasting carnations last week, before the stores got flooded with roses. I’m not a fan of roses.
Caden was excited about breakfast. Shepard wouldn’t eat it because the frosting wasn’t white.
Caden checking out my Valentine present. (More on this later.) He’s seriously so much more tech savvy than me already. It’s kind of ridiculous. In first grade his teacher said that he was the classroom IT guy and was always fixing everyone’s problems.
Our Valentine tree with gifts!
I love giving gifts. LOVE IT. I tried to contain it to one thing each, but then I saw some really great puzzles at Barnes and Noble last week and the piles expanded a bit.
My day at home was spent working on St. Patrick’s Day dolls to try and restock my inventory. I really should have just taken this week off of work because I have way too much else I should be doing to get ready for the weekend. But…I love to create! Here are the boys showing me their school treats. I thought it was really cute that Caden’s class went into Shepard’s class to pair up and read the younger kids all their Valentines. Caden chose to be Shepard’s partner.
I made a flourless chocolate cake for our fancy dessert. So yummy.
Shepard’s really into kissing and making kissing faces lately.
Reading me the card he made us. 🙂 My kids never verbally say “I love you,” but Shepard is constantly writing it on pictures for us that he makes at school.
My compacted cozy space in the living room! I thought I’d continue to be the only one using this area, but now that the Legos are in the room, it’s like the rest of my family finally realized this room exists. Caden was curled up reading on the futon all last night.
Jack giving me the evil eye.
Annual family Valentine picture. I guess my kids have graduated past cutesy holiday shirts. But they did wear red!
Present time! I gave Caden the next box of books in the Pokemon series he loves.
Shepard got a lego set. He loves the creator sets.
I gave Greg the card game Pairs – The Name of the Wind edition. We both love The Name of the Wind series.
Also a lego ruler. Because he’s always looking for rulers and he loves legos. Ha!
And a 4.5 lb bag of Hot Tamales, his favorite candy.
Let me just preface this by saying laptops are not in the Valentine budget lol. But Greg recently won this at work and surprised me with it early this morning. I was pretty shocked! I’ve never had a laptop and I’m really looking forward to getting some use out of it! It was really sweet that he chose to give it to me instead of selling it to pay for some gaming things he’s been wanting. It was definitely an unexpected, but really awesome gift!
We had Valentine pastas and garlic bread for dinner. Simple, festive.
And finally, some chocolate covered strawberries because no Valentine’s Day is complete without them! After dinner we cuddled up and watched half of the first Narnia movie because they just finished reading the book. It was a really great day!
Now time to make some cocktails and settle in for the rest of the night. I hope you had a great Valentine’s Day as well!
