Valentine's Day Surprise

I realized last night that I don't know what I want!  haha....the weeks coming up to a holiday, I have all these thoughts about the holiday being lame and I don't want to even do one thing during it...and then, the day hits....and I want to celebrate and have fun with my kids.  That's what happened yesterday. 

I did not do a big push coming up on Valentine's Day for a couple of reasons, but passing around a stomach virus last week didn't help.  By the time I realized when V-day was, I didn't have time to do much.  Somehow though, Nicole heard about it, and started asking me when V-day was.  We already had a play date planned at a friend's house.  She had some very fun activities that the girls could do with her children.  They did some educational activities, iced and decorated heart shape cookies and played for a long time.  To them ,it was a Valentine's Day party...and it was really fun. 

However, Sunday, I was on one of my favorite blogs, and I saw a post about a "quick and easy" Valentine's Day surprise this blogger did for her children that morning.  I thought this would be a great idea to do with my family.  I liked that it was "quick and easy", it was special...but not gourmet, and it was something I could enjoy preparing with the girls. I talked to Nicole about it, and we decided we would make it a big surprise for Jeremy.  (by the way, I would not post this under the "quick and easy" category. I find making breakfast to be a big mess that takes longer to prepare and clean up than a normal meal")

Yesterday during naps, I cut out a bunch of small and large hearts, and wrote on them, like conversation hearts.  These were our decorations, scattered around the table.  We also had a heart table cloth, and pink balloons hanging from the light and the walls.  When daddy got home, there was a large heart on the door, and small hearts on the floor that lead him to the table.  (Nicole thought that part was really cool). 

For dinner, we had pancakes with a pink heart in the middle, bacon, egg sandwiches...also cut out in a heart shape, strawberries, and pink strawberry milk with a strawberry on top.  Everything was pink...everywhere.

We also made a heart shaped cake.  Nicole insisted upon buying blue sprinkles, because "blue is for boys, and this cake is for daddy, so we don't want pink, we want blue".  And, you can see the extent of Hannah's reach...yes, she put on the multi-colored stars.

We had such a fun and yummy dinner and evening.  The anticipation of daddy coming home made the afternoon lots of fun.  When we knew he was on his way, Nicole went around and closed all of the blinds and turned on the lights down.  She likes to "set the mood".  We turned on some piano music (which she said makes her "want to dance and dance all night long and not even eat her dinner".)

At the end of the evening, Jeremy said it best, "This was way better than going out to eat tonight".  It really was. 

I have decided to forgo the "I don't want to celebrate anything attitude", and just go for it and have lots of fun with my family.  St. Patricks Day....here I come! (what is that holiday all about anyway?)