Happy Hearts Day

Valentine's Day has been going on for weeks at our house! The main reason for that is because my husband hates Valentine's Day because he feels that it is dumb that the commercial world has to pick an arbitrary day to express your love to your loved ones when you should actually be doing it every day. Before you get the idea that he isn't romantic, let me explain that I actually love this about him. It just means that I get showered with gifts and flowers at random times unexpectedly. Ironically, the only day of the year I know I won't get anything from him is on Valentine's Day!

The festivities began a couple of weekends ago when we went out and had a "Valentine's Day" dinner at Maggiano's with Ben and Molly. We had so much fun with them and the food was AMAZING! We of course ate family style so we could get more of anything we wanted, plus it comes with the added bonus of lots of yummy leftovers! Then about a week later he surprised me with a gift card to a maternity store that I like since he knew I had NO summer maternity clothes because I have never had a summer baby.

Then a few days ago, he brought these home as a surprise!

I have to admit though that since I have become a mom, Valentine's Day has mostly become about the kids. My Grandma Allred surprised the kids and sent them each a Valentine Card in the mail a couple weeks ago and gave them each a few dollars to spend. They are always excited to receive mail of any kind but they especially like the kind with money:)

Notice how Carter has his money in his hand. He is keeping close track of it! The kids were so excited about this little surprise from Great Nana and we went to Target a few days ago to spend their money. Rylynn bought a Cinderella polly pocket doll to add to her collection and Carter bought a new Thomas train to add to his. They were thrilled! Thank you so much Grandma!

Then this Wednesday it was Rylynn's Valentine's party at school. I signed up to bring in some heart cookies for a special treat.

Rylynn was so excited to help me make them.

Carter just wanted to eat them. They both ate about five before I realized they hadn't even eaten lunch yet! Needless to say they didn't eat much lunch.

Rylynn's class has been learning about mail for the last couple weeks so they were so excited to make these giant envelopes to keep all their valentine's in from their friends. The only sad thing was that Rylynn was so excited about taking the cookies that we had made that she totally forgot to hand out her valentines to her friends. When I picked her up I noticed they were still in her backpack so I told her teacher and she felt really bad, but they said she could pass them out next week. Oh well.

They also made homemade valentines at school to send home to their families so we got this beauty in the mail a couple days ago.

This morning, we all got up and I made everyone a special French toast breakfast and then we gave the kids some little valentines gifts.

Rylynn named her little pony stuffed animal "pinkypie" and Carter calls his frog "froggy" very original I know. The other thing that Carter says about his froggy is "church" because he is wearing a tie. He loves pointing out church clothes in pictures or when people are wearing them. He is so funny. He always follows "church" up by saying "snack" because for him they go hand in hand. Snack time is definitely the highlight of nursery for him! They also got candy necklaces/bracelets and Rylynn got a new princess nightgown and Carter got a Bob the Builder movie. They were pretty happy campers. I asked Rylynn what her favorite thing about all of Valentine's Day was and she said without hesitation "the Cookies!" So we made another batch tonight. Hey what can I say, I'm pregnant:)