DONUT you want to be my Valentine?

Enjoying a Dizzie Izzie at Dear Lizzie

I'm pretty sure I dig Valentine's Day more than most.  Every year I find myself getting excited to find ideas and make cute valentines with & for the kids.  This year did not disappoint and we had a fabulous heart day!  Millie didn't have a "special" Valentine at the moment, but both of boys did! Sambo even gave a stuffed animal, a flower, and some chocolate to his.  Her name rhymes with Madison :)

Will had his eye on somebody and was planning to ask her to be his Valentine, but a different girl beat him and asked him to be her Valentine first.  Of course he couldn't say no!  As a 4th grader he wasn't quite ready to give her a gift but he did give her an extra donut.  

This was the first year that Millie didn't put together and hand out Valentines, so we only had 3 kid's classes. They unanimously voted on donuts.  Lucky for me Krispy Kreme makes really cute and scrumptious donuts for Valentines day. And lucky for the kids, assembling the valentines only required folding boxes, throwing in a donut, and slapping on a sticker!

The boys have sleepy eyes because they are putting theirs together at 6:30 a.m. They procrastinated.

But there was still enough time for pink pancakes

And here they are looking adorable and ready for Cupid to strike:

I gave them these cute mugs filled with goodies along with their favorite hot cocoa:

And of course BS and I went out on a date. We love Tepanyaki and going to the movies. It was hot in more ways than one ;)  Yep, still madly in LOVE!

BS and I gave ourselves one of these packages that came straight from heaven - a mix of homemade chocolate dipped strawberries, oreos, cinnamon bears, pretzels, and marshmallows.  The Young Women in our ward {mosly us leaders} made these and sold them for a fund raiser. It was super successful and we will probably do this every year! So Good!

Be My Valentine

Valentine's Day came and went so quickly this year!  I wasn't as prepared for the heart day as I usually am, but luckily Millie found a really cute and easy idea for their Valentines:

Jolly Rancher Suckers!

She and her friend Morann made 120 of these babies, which was enough for Sambo and Will to pass out to their classes too!

Quincy wanted to give her classmates more than just one candy, so we put a couple of little treats in these bags and made stickers to seal them up.  Lately blue has been her favorite color {and now orange} so we had to put some blue on her stickers.

{The other Valentine was for her teacher, filled with chocolate cinnamon bears}

Here is BS with Quincy at her class party.  He filled-in for me because I was getting my hair done as a Valentine treat to myself ;)  He read stories about Valentines Day to the kids.

I'm willing to bet he was the cutest parent volunteer at the party!  And Quin was so thrilled to have her Dad there with her for a change!

Usually we have a fun Valentine's dinner as a family to celebrate the occasion, but this year BS asked me out on a date so we had our dinner with the kids on Valentine's Eve.  The kids wanted pink Belgium waffles with strawberries and pink whipped cream.  {The recipe is actually called "Valentines waffles, from my friend who's last name is Valentine}. And of course, red Raspberry syrup and buttermilk syrup.  

And somehow I managed to find time to traditionally make sugar cookies with help from this little lady:

I tried a new recipe and it was DIVINE.

I really do LOVE this holiday.  It's one of my favorites.

PS: Millie may or may not have danced with this cutie at a YM/YW dance etiquette activity :)

Valentines Day Wrap Up

I love Valentine's Day.  But it came too fast.  This holiday is right smack in the middle of the kid's birthdays so we have been busy.  We were really scrambling to get our valentines put together in time!  I was moaning and groaning to some friends about how inconvenient it was to make home-made valentines and "why can't I just go to the store and buy some?"  Absolutely nothing is wrong with that.  The thing is...as much as I was not wanting to do them, I really do love making them with the kids.  I love finding and coming up with different ideas and letting them choose.  I love letting them assemble them and write their classmates' names.  

We celebrated with the kids the night before because BS had planned a date night for just the 2 of us.  We had heart pizza, heart donuts, and pink love potion.  Healthy I know.  

Valentine's Day Dinner:

After dinner we went to work assembling their valentines.  Quincy celebrated V-day earlier that day with her preschool class because she doesn't go on Tues/Thurs.  So she was very helpful counting the candies and putting them into the bags.  Here she is showing off her Valentines:

She hand wrote all of the names

 I'm not allowed to say who...but 2 of the kids gave and were given valentines from a "special" someone:

Given

Given

Received - wow!

 

 

After the Valentines Day exchange and class parties were through, I was really looking forward to my date with BS.  I had no idea what he had planned but I was hoping it involved food and relaxing.  To my surprise he came home at 3:00 and told me to get my ski clothes on!  Yep, we were going skiing!  I love skiing so I was happy to hear it...but I wasn't sure if I had the gusto.  

Turns out I did.  We had so much fun!  We haven't skied without the kiddos in a long time.  We went night skiing at Brighton for a few hours and then to dinner at Porcupine Grill.  YUM.

Valentines

We had a wonderful Valentine holiday.

It went like this:

Assembling the Valentines:

Millie and Sambo chose to make some that had 2 hearts filled with gumballs and stapled together. To open, you have to tear it to reveal candy inside. Cute! And even better, they could make it themselves!


Will chose to give Hershey bars with a valentine attached to the front with his picture on it.
He was so happy with them and again, could do this all by himself!



Quinny chose these cute little robots. I came across the idea on the internet and I showed the boys thinking they would want to do it...but nope, it was Quincy who loved the robots!



For teachers and friends we gave these water bottles with a valentine label and strawberry Chrystal Light attached. We thought they would be tired of all the treats:


For breakfast we ate Valentine waffles which are pink Belgium waffles with fresh strawberries, buttermilk syrup, and whipped cream. The recipe comes from my friend who's family name is Valentine. Yum.

Here are kiddos with their boxes filled with their Valentines.
{Note: I did not send Sam with that box...he wanted to take it. After school that day he came home a little sad saying that kids were teasing him for having hearts all over his box}.


I got to help with Millie's class party. I was in charge of the games. It was a relief to witness that boys and girls are still not that interested in each other :) I love that age! Here's Millie at school with my little helper:


Later we had game night (played Sorry!, Spoons, and Uno) and ate a special dinner-
Pizza with heart pepperonis, salad with heart cucumbers, bread, and red punch. Then peanut butter blossoms and heart sugar cookies for dessert:



Then it was Valentine exchange from us to the kids. They got flip flops and fancy chocolate truffles that my friend Tracy made.


I gave BS a ski day and night at the Alaskan Inn {with me of course}. We are going next week.
He gave me pedicure stuff and even better...a pedicure with his own hands! And the polish he picked out is really cute! He's as good as the Asians!

I heart you.

P.S. - Somebody turned 4 today!!!