Valentine Recap

Valentine's Day is my FAVORITE holiday, I'm pretty sure. I am so blessed, and I love the opportunity to celebrate all my loved ones on a special day. This weekend was crazy because with Valentine's Day on Monday we kind of spread out the festivities but it was a lot of fun. Saturday we took the kids ice skating for their first time ever. I don't know what I was thinking about Matt but he freaked out as soon as Justin tried to put his skates on so we really ended up taking turns watching him play iPod, but the other kids did fabulous!

Sunday morning we had Valentine breakfast with Chocolate (I think that should always be capitalized) waffles and berry sauce, baked eggs (recipe below, try them try them you will see!) and sweet and spicy bacon. The kids took valentines to their primary classes and in the morning they sneakily helped each other make butcher paper valentines for Justin and I while he was in meetings and I in the shower. Love those kids!

The reverse side of Erick's is covered in blue hearts, too. He's very thorough.

Izzie helped Audrey write, and these are Audrey's first hearts. Izzie showed her how then she did them all herself. I love that they worked together!

And Izzie's masterpiece. It has to involve tape and a beautiful picture. The middle character is "Miss Hearthead" and she's saying "I love you".

Sunday night we pulled out the crafting stuff to finish up class valentines and boxes - pictures still coming, but I was proud of the kids. They all have their own likes and styles and are so creative!

A sweet friend of mine also dropped off this wonderful valentine wreath! So cute, right?

For lunch Monday I sent the kids with heart-shaped sandwiches and valentines with pink M&Ms. One of these years I really want to be able to bring in pizza for lunch and eat with them or something, but it wasn't in the cards this time. Maybe next year! They had their class parties and Audrey had a valentine preschool.

Justin and I always do dinner at home for us and the kids, so this year was baked alfredo (I found a recipe that's lighter, and still tastes good!), cheesy rolls (photo below), glass block jello squares, berries and of course pink punch.

While we waited for Justin to get home, the kids made these:

And after dinner we all did a little of this while we munched them:

We played for a little over an hour then counted cash and holdings. Izzie was the cash winner, and Audrey was the dark horse property winner. Erick was amazed because he was sure he was ahead on both counts! I was sent to jail 3 times so it wasn't a good showing. Matt made sure all the play money was thoroughly coated in chocolate. Thanks Matt! Justin ended up being both the banker and Matt's jailer so he was a little distracted and didn't do well either. Actually I really think Audrey inherited his luck because he's not so lucky when playing games with the kids and she seems to sweep. It's this odd thing. If it's just he and I playing he has the luck back, but when Audrey's involved there's no question about who will be rolling the sevens. Er, I mean, passing go. We called Grandmas and Grandpas to wish them happy valentine's day and called it a night. I love these monsters so much, it was a lovely day!