Valentine's Part Two

I love holidays.  I think it is because I grew up in a big family that really values tradition and holidays make me feel connected to my past as well as my present.  Plus they are an excuse to do fun kid things and leave boring adult things like paying bills and folding laundry on the side lines.  This years Valentine's day especially rocked out since I've been pinning fun ideas for two months.  It started with a heart shaped braid for Gigi's hair.  She was the most excited about the day.  Captain E had his party the Friday before, Peach had her Wednesday, finally on Thursday Gigi was going to have hers.  She told me she was going to sleep in her clothes to makes sure she made it.  I promised her if she slept in pjs I'd do something fun in her hair to celebrate.  She loved this braid!  Then we went downstairs where I had a box of chocolates and a tiny mailbox with a Valentine from both me and Dr. J for each child.

The girls loved it.

Especially they youngest girl who went CRAZY for her chocolates!!!  

Captain E then had a Valentine's Day gift for me that he'd made at Cub Scouts, a box of chocolate covered strawberries.  Hello, HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!  They were delicious, and yes I ate half the box for breakfast :)  Then it was on to heart shaped meals.  Kids love hearts so why not.  

We had heart shaped nested eggs for breakfast.

Heart shaped PB&J for lunch with some Valentine's Day jokes for entertainment.  

And heart shaped pizza for dinner.  It is typically our tradition to do a fancy dinner but this year doctor J was working until nine and Captain E had piano lessons at seven so we pushed our fancy dinner to two days later.  

The rest of the day was sort of a whirl.  We went to the conservatory with some friends and looked at orchids and Koi fish.  The girls loved it although one of our little friends fell in one of the Koi ponds and I had the nearly impossible task of trying to keep Tiny T from putting her fingers in the open fish mouths, but otherwise it was lovely.  The flowers were beautiful and it was so warm that even shedding sweaters I was sweating.  

Then we went to Costco where I picked up a tons of fruit and coveted this sectional piece.  I don't know that the style is necessarily my favorite but I love how the pieces can be moved around into some many different variations.  It seems like a good piece to have.  I was originally thinking that maybe we'd use part of our tax return to purchase it but turns out this year we made enough money to push ourselves into a new tax bracket and miss out on EIC and Child Tax Credit.  Which I guess I'm glad we got a raise but it does mean no new couch.  So back to put money in the jar for it and maybe I can squirrel enough away before they stop carrying it.  We've just gotten to the point where we can not fit on a normal sofa.  Hello family of six :)

I also texted Dr. J and asked him if he waned to buy me roses for Valentine's Day.  Then I offered to pick them us since I was at Costco where they sell a dozen on Valentine's day for $14.  It does not get any better than that if you are going to buy flowers on the big day.  He said, "Whatever makes you happy makes me happy."  So there you go, roses for me.

It was a fun day and I think the kids really enjoyed it.  As for our fancy put off dinner I pulled out some of the t-bone steaks we got from our cow.  I've been saving the better steak cuts and it seemed like a good day to use them.  The menu was t-bone steaks, baked potatoes, salad w/ homemade ranch dressing, cheesy biscuits, artichoke with butter sauce, and two bottles of apple cinder.  It was delicious and a great way to celebrate how much I love all five of my Valentine's :)