Happy Valentine's

It's all pink, love, chocolate, and lollipops around here today.  So much candy.  Here's how we celebrated.

LOVE MY FAMILY

I set my alarm extra early this morning to make everyone cinnamon-chip-and-red-hot pancakes for breakfast.  Starting the day off the way I'm sure we will end it - sugar.  Plus I bought the girls each a small red heart box of chocolates (3 per box) and put it with a love note by their pillows to wake up to.  It's important to set their expectations for Valentine's Day.

Later in the morning we went to the grocery store and splurged on some Valentine's balloons.  Which we clipped to the stroller when we went to pick up Hazel, and which popped because the girls were batting them so much, which sent Ginger into an inevitable sugar crash a little sooner than expected.

But before that, while Poppy was napping, Ginger and I had some good one-on-one time playing a game I got for my birthday, Chocolate Fix.  Very Valentine's-appropriate, and a seriously excellent exercise in deductive logic.  I swear some of the challenge cards are harder than GRE problems.

No dinner swap tonight so I ordered Thai for the grown-ups and made butterfly pasta for the kids - their favorite.  Chocolate-dipped strawberry Peeps for dessert.

LOVE MYSELF

This morning I met my friend Sheri at the mall and we took turns watching the kids and having our eyelashes tinted, ooh la la!  My next post will be more about that.

I also checked the mail - my once-a-week venture over there - and found a surprise super fun Valentine's/birthday package from my friend Kat, chocolatier extraordinaire.  She sent me a necklace, lots of hand-dipped chocolates, and a card with purses on the front to represent how she misses me as her personal shopper.  That makes two of us.  Thanks, man.

 

 

The Thai for dinner was a little self-love as well.  Don't usually splurge like that.  But sometimes a little red curry chicken is just what I want.  And deserve.

LOVE MY LOVE

Ed and I were not very romantic today.  It's a Tuesday!  And we just had our birthdays.  Which, I haven't mentioned, he rocked.  He (finally) had my wedding rings re-sized to fit over my, ahem, motherly knuckles.  I haven't worn them since I was pregnant with Hazel...SEVEN years ago.  I feel like a new bride again, and it feels amazing.  I forgot the thrill of having the diamond catch the light while my hand is on the steering wheel, and having little sparkles bedazzle the car interior.

And we went out on Saturday - dinner and a movie, our favorite.  Dinner at a local Indian place, and movie, The Artist.  Which I think deserves all the great press it has gotten.  Charming. 

Ed works with the youth in our church, and they always have activities Tuesday nights, so he came home for about 5 minutes to switch cars, then was off to the big stake youth activity, which, among other things, promised to include cookie decorating and "speed-friending."  So I am putting the kids to bed (after reading Lilly's Chocolate Heart and a few chapters of The Children of Noisy Village), washing the dishes, and settling in for a little TV and an early bedtime. 

*****

At dinner, Hazel graced us with her version of how Valentine's Day came to be.  I recorded it.  Too cute to not share, here it is in her own words.

It, it was in "agent" something, I don't remember.  Um, when there was two celebrations, one about a goddess, who...I think it was "agent" Greece, one about a goddess who was a goddess about love and marriage, and the other one about hope.  And then, 100 years later, it came all to a man named Valentine.

And, and Valentine...but the king didn't want any young men to get married because he wanted them to get soldiers, and if they got soldiers, he was afraid that the young men would be sort of sad with their families.  

So Valentine secretly did marry a few young women and young men, he helped them get married in a secret imagine forest, and um, he um, but when the king found out, he put it into prison, he put him in the prison, and um, but people would still throw flowers and messages at him.  He would catch them.  And those count as the ones for Valentine, those Valentines.  They're Valentines.  And that's how Valentine's Day started.  The End.  Can I listen to it?