Valentine's Day 2013

Or, the year I failed at showing the Valentine spirit.

I thought long and hard about posting our Valentine's Day activities throughout the week as we completed them, in case anyone wanted some ideas. But as long as the boys' naps are only overlapping by about thirty minutes, and Silas fusses as soon as I head towards the computer because he knows I'm going to sit down, I'm not going to be blogging during nap time very often. Such is life.

We kicked the week off with toilet-paper-roll-heart painting. This has been floating around pinterest and a variety of blogs for a while now, and it was just as easy as everyone says. Smash a toilet paper roll into a heart shape, dip it in paint, press on paper. Levi loved it so much he filled two sheets of paper. I made a pretty cute little design of my own, if I do say so myself, with great plans to use it as a background for a V-day card for my husband. It's still sitting on the kitchen counter. Such is life.

For bonus points: anybody know what this shirt is from?

Knowing that Wednesday and Thursday were going to be too busy, we made and decorated cookies on Tuesday. Fact: I care more about decorating heart cookies for Valentine's Day than I do sugar cookies at Christmas time. I don't know why. The boys helped scoop and mix ingredients in the morning, and cut out their cookies for baking after lunch. I got a little perfectionistic (and therefore crabby) about cutting them out nicely. I was too busy micro-managing to take pictures. It was not a nice mommy moment. I apologized. 

It turns out that I'm out of red food coloring. I thought about running to the store, but let's be frank: with three children in car seats, there is no running anywhere. They don't need food dye anyway. Also, see the globs of red on the cookies above that look sort of like jam? It's not jam. It's really, really, really old writing gel, that stuff in the little squeezable tubes for decorating cakes. Levi managed to squirt it out on two cookies before I saw what was happening. Then he put his hand in it and promptly wiped it off on my light-blue kitchen towel. It was nearly another not-nice mommy moment, but I held it together. It's not his fault I have light-colored towels. Since then, he's been quite good at asking if it's okay to wipe his hands on any towel that's out . . . which sort of makes me feel like a dictator. Way to show the love on the love-holiday, Mommy.

Owen gets in on the action. He does not get a turn with the old writing gel.

That brings us to Thursday. I had a lovely breakfast planned: French toast (cut into hearts, of course) and these bacon hearts. But we always eat oatmeal on Thursday mornings, and I just plain forgot to do something different. Lame. I had a cute lunch planned as well: toast (cut into hearts, of course) with cream cheese and strawberries. But I never got to the store for strawberries, and anyway my husband e-mailed me an advertisement from Qdoba stating that all we had to do to get BOGO burritos was kiss someone at the cash register. Isaac was too busy at work to get away, so I loaded up the kids, kissed them all soundly (and the older two returned the favor!), and dropped off Isaac's burrito to him on our way home. I did, however, cut the kids' quesadillas into hearts (of course). 

We had a couple from church and their little boy over for dinner -- just because, not specifically for Valentine's Day, but I couldn't pass up the chance to be festive. My parents sent these handprint Valentines for the boys, which I hung up in the dining room like garland. I lit the stacked-heart candle from last year and set a heart-shaped box of chocolates at each adult's plate, like my mom used to do when I was a kid. (I also wore a new pair of heart socks, but forgot to take a picture. I'm sure you're devastated.) Dinner itself (a new recipe, which I'll post tomorrow) was quite good, but dessert flopped (unless I was willing to call it "chocolate-flecked soup" instead of "chocolate mousse," which I wasn't). Such is life.