It's Romance Galore

We're not super-duper celebrators of Valentine's Day around here, but we did do a few fun things today. All of my pictures are backwards and since it's late and I'm going on very little sleep, we'll just go with it.

I'm usually very anti-Valentine's. There is usually some major fallout over the nightmarish task of my children taking 17-25 little pieces of cardstock and writing their friends' names on them. I'm not sure what makes the whole process so stressful, but we're all usually close to tears. I'm happy to announce that all that went off without a hitch and we even had them done a week ahead of time. Another drawback to this holiday is all the junk lovely items the kids come home with that I have to find some way to sneakily dispose of. They did both come home with a sack of crapola adorable Valentine treats, but I've ignored them up to this point. So far, so good.

But this year, I tried to be a good sport and come up with something a little special. Sam's contribution to the whole occassion was a little snot followed by some tears and loud screaming. Par for the course at dinner time around here, but the fact that he's sick doesn't help. We love him and his mullet anyway.
Luke had a "Pajama Day," which he was very upset about when Maddie, Jack, and Chris came home after school fully dressed in non-sleepwear. He had a mini-meltdown because he wanted to get dressed at 6pm, which is frankly ridiculous from the point of view of the local laundress, but he did manage to enjoy the giant lip lollipop his sweet Aunt Emily gave him.

Here is my Valentine. What did he get me to commemorate this special Day of Love and Romance? He gave me the priceless gift of his presence and assistance at 3:30am when I had to clean up the second and larger round of vomit which landed Sam in the bathtub and me doing laundry at 4am. Nothing says love like forgoing sleep on a work night to help you clean up puke. Really, I'd rather have had that than five dozen roses because there's nothing lonelier and more miserable than cleaning up puke by yourself. I love you, My Sweet Valentine. Aren't you glad we finally got the Valentine's Day we always dreamed of?

He also finished off our Valentine's Day pizza (with a different, and even yummier, homemade crust recipe) while I sat in the bathroom floor trying not to pass out after almost slicing my thumb off. Blood and vomit. Nothing more festive than that.

Okay, here's a weird picture of Maddie and Jack pretending to kiss with their giant lip candy.

Is it weird that I kept wanting to tell them to smile before I snapped the pictures? But then I'd realize they were using big, fake lips that couldn't smile. For some reason, the whole thing felt strange.

And here, at the end, is the beginning. We started off the day with a special breakfast. If you can't tell, the strawberries are shaped like hearts. I would not want you to miss that very important detail. This whole meal thrilled me because it was easy, the kids loved it, and it used up two items in my kitchen that were about to go bad.

I just sliced up some of our almost-stale homemade wheat bread, buttered it, and lightly sprinkled it with cinnamon and sugar. I stuck it in the oven to toast while I put half a block of softened cream cheese, maybe about six strawberries, and a drizzle of maple syrup in the food processor. When the toast came out, I spread some pink fluffy topping on it and plopped on a few strawberries. Easy breezy, but the kids were impressed...and maybe I was a little bit, too. :)

Well, I just missed Valentine's Day by five minutes, but I hope you had a good one. I'm going to bed and praying for lots of sleep and no puke. XOXO