Making Valentine's Day A special Day
It's Valentine's Day! I just love Valentine's day!
I have always been a hopeless romantic; I love reading romance novels, having fires in the fireplace, long walks on the beach, etc... all that cheesy romantic stuff just melts my heart. So it's no wonder that I work hard to make Valentine's day special in our house.
Some simple ways to make Valentine's Day a special day:
We started celebrating early, we had a family movie night last night. My oldest son has basketball practice tonight so we knew we couldn't do anything tonight. My husband loves the movie The Princess Bride and convinced the boys they'd love it since it has sword fighting in it.
They did seem to enjoy it but I think they liked staying up late on a "school night" with popcorn and a glass of Coke even more.
They were up bright and early this morning asking to open gifts. Usually, I just make all my guys valentines and we get them some chocolates. This year I made little treat bags of Hershey's chocolate bars, Kit Kats and Reese's peanut butter cups and we splurged and bought them each a movie from the $5 bin at Target/ Wal- mart along with some Pokemon cards.
They loved it all and were more thankful for those four little gifts (I have to count the cards as I heard multiple "thank you" s for those) than they seemed to be at Christmas! It was great.
As an added special treat they were allowed to watch their movies today and eat a few chocolates before breakfast! They started the movies, without fighting about which one to watch first.
I made a special breakfast: red heart pancakes with choc. chips, sausage, and fresh sliced strawberries with chocolate or strawberry flavored milk.
They were thrilled when breakfast was finally served. If you'd like to make heart pancakes it's really quite easy. I used some red food coloring and when I pour the batter I poured in a v shape by the 1/4 cup. They spread so the more "V" shaped they are the more heart- like they come out. They don't come out perfect but all the boys knew they were hearts without my asking.
After breakfast and movies I had to read Evan's "heart attack" hearts to him. They love reading the hearts I leave on the doors each night and even though I'm starting to have a harder time coming up with saying for them I promised to keep up this tradition going until the end of February.
I convinced the boys to write little notes and stick them in some books scattered around the Children's section of the library while we were there. I explained that it's a nice, anonymous way to leave someone a night to brighten their day.
They could write something as simple as I love this book and hope you do too and tuck it in a favorite book. They could write have a nice day. Smile! Anything!
Alec decided to write a note for the librarian instead. He wrote "I really like your help." She was so touched and told him it was her first valentine of the day. We even brought our own pink hearts to write them on. Having a small stack of hearts helped too since they knew they'd only have to write a couple each.
Such a short, sweet simple way to bring a smile to someone's day seemed like a great way to spread some valentine's cheer.
We headed to the store to get some supplies for our family Valentine's dinner. We're making everyone's favorite: Chicken Parmesan with spaghetti, salad and fresh bread. I had an apple pie in the freezer that I had made in the fall and so we picked up some ice cream and cool whip. The boys only eat the ice cream and not the pie so I let them pick out their favorite flavors.
Sometimes it's those little things that make what could be an ordinary day extra special.
On the way home from all our errands we stopped for lunch with my husband and my in- laws. It was great to have the whole family together!
The boys were telling them all about their day and the books they had read so far. By lunch all of the boys had looked at or read three books!
It was a beautiful sunny day so I told the boys if they piled on the snow gear we could walk to our Aunt's house and see her new dog, play some card games and eat some snacks.
They had a blast though and we heard birds, saw deer prints in the snow, stopped to observe several different brooks and the way snow melted or froze over them. They tried to crack on and jump on the ice formations along the side of the road, they realized if they spread out their weight more evenly (by crawling) they wouldn't sink as far down as walking. It was a great nature walk with lots of scientific discoveries. There was even talk of "next time we should try.... and see..." suggestions. I love these; they're making up their own scientific experiments without even knowing!
Once at our Aunt's they played cards (war), worked on jigsaw puzzles, played with her new dog, and ate snacks. It was wonderful.
I love having the time to stop and see family whenever we feel like it with the boys. Family is the most important thing to us and I love knowing they're growing up living that belief.
Linking Up With:
I have always been a hopeless romantic; I love reading romance novels, having fires in the fireplace, long walks on the beach, etc... all that cheesy romantic stuff just melts my heart. So it's no wonder that I work hard to make Valentine's day special in our house.
Some simple ways to make Valentine's Day a special day:
- Spend extra time with family members/ Valentine.
- Add little surprises through the day-- sprinkles or food coloring in the food, notes in the lunch box, etc.
- Do some random acts of kindness for others.
- Give gifts from the heart-- I like to make handmade cards and write little notes for the family to find around.
- Make a special meal or a favorite dessert.
We started celebrating early, we had a family movie night last night. My oldest son has basketball practice tonight so we knew we couldn't do anything tonight. My husband loves the movie The Princess Bride and convinced the boys they'd love it since it has sword fighting in it.
They did seem to enjoy it but I think they liked staying up late on a "school night" with popcorn and a glass of Coke even more.
They loved it all and were more thankful for those four little gifts (I have to count the cards as I heard multiple "thank you" s for those) than they seemed to be at Christmas! It was great.
As an added special treat they were allowed to watch their movies today and eat a few chocolates before breakfast! They started the movies, without fighting about which one to watch first.
I made a special breakfast: red heart pancakes with choc. chips, sausage, and fresh sliced strawberries with chocolate or strawberry flavored milk.
They were thrilled when breakfast was finally served. If you'd like to make heart pancakes it's really quite easy. I used some red food coloring and when I pour the batter I poured in a v shape by the 1/4 cup. They spread so the more "V" shaped they are the more heart- like they come out. They don't come out perfect but all the boys knew they were hearts without my asking.
After breakfast and movies I had to read Evan's "heart attack" hearts to him. They love reading the hearts I leave on the doors each night and even though I'm starting to have a harder time coming up with saying for them I promised to keep up this tradition going until the end of February.
I convinced the boys to write little notes and stick them in some books scattered around the Children's section of the library while we were there. I explained that it's a nice, anonymous way to leave someone a night to brighten their day.
They could write something as simple as I love this book and hope you do too and tuck it in a favorite book. They could write have a nice day. Smile! Anything!
Alec decided to write a note for the librarian instead. He wrote "I really like your help." She was so touched and told him it was her first valentine of the day. We even brought our own pink hearts to write them on. Having a small stack of hearts helped too since they knew they'd only have to write a couple each.
Such a short, sweet simple way to bring a smile to someone's day seemed like a great way to spread some valentine's cheer.
We headed to the store to get some supplies for our family Valentine's dinner. We're making everyone's favorite: Chicken Parmesan with spaghetti, salad and fresh bread. I had an apple pie in the freezer that I had made in the fall and so we picked up some ice cream and cool whip. The boys only eat the ice cream and not the pie so I let them pick out their favorite flavors.
Sometimes it's those little things that make what could be an ordinary day extra special.
On the way home from all our errands we stopped for lunch with my husband and my in- laws. It was great to have the whole family together!
The boys were telling them all about their day and the books they had read so far. By lunch all of the boys had looked at or read three books!
It was a beautiful sunny day so I told the boys if they piled on the snow gear we could walk to our Aunt's house and see her new dog, play some card games and eat some snacks.
They had a blast though and we heard birds, saw deer prints in the snow, stopped to observe several different brooks and the way snow melted or froze over them. They tried to crack on and jump on the ice formations along the side of the road, they realized if they spread out their weight more evenly (by crawling) they wouldn't sink as far down as walking. It was a great nature walk with lots of scientific discoveries. There was even talk of "next time we should try.... and see..." suggestions. I love these; they're making up their own scientific experiments without even knowing!
Once at our Aunt's they played cards (war), worked on jigsaw puzzles, played with her new dog, and ate snacks. It was wonderful.
I love having the time to stop and see family whenever we feel like it with the boys. Family is the most important thing to us and I love knowing they're growing up living that belief.
Such cute ideas and WOW, look at all that snow!! Thanks so much for linking up with me at #AThemedLinkup 41 for All Things Love and Valentine’s Day, open until February 7. Shared on social media.
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