V-Day 2013

Valentine's Day this year was jam packed. Well...at least it felt that way to me.

I started by getting up early (before the kids were up...which is early to me) and making Miles breakfast. I decided to make him eggs in a basket but cut out the holes with my heart and lips cookie cutters. It didn't turn out perfectly, but I think it was alright.

Miles then spent a little time letting Owen jump off the changing table...

...into his arms, of course!

Once Dad was out the door, Owen and I got busy making breakfast for ourselves. Owen decided to jump the gun and chomp into the cheese...again.

After breakfast and once Elsie was down for a nap, Owen and I took on the task of making sugar cookies.

I think he had a lot of fun. I, on the other hand, had to exercise a lot of patience. One time, when I was pulling off the extra dough around the cut cookies, Owen grabbed some of the excess and quickly shoveled it in his mouth. He also had a hard time resisting the urge to stick his little fingers into the rolled out dough.

Then he pretended to eat the dough off the counter. Such a silly boy.

Elsie was a gem and just sat back while we finished up baking the cookies.

I made some special cookies for Miles to eat.

A final note on cookie making with Owen. He was ridiculously obsessed with them the rest of the day and throughout the following days. I couldn't go more than 10 minutes without hearing about cookies and requests for cookies or finding him sticking his fingers in the frosting. One time I put them in a pyrex dish on top of the toaster so he couldn't reach them. He climbed up on the arm of his chair and brought the dish crashing down onto the counter. Thankfully, neither he nor the cookies were hurt. Next time, I vow to hide all evidence of cookies or frosting so that it won't be such an temptation obsession for his sugar-crazed little body.

When Owen was down for a nap, Elsie and I had a little v-day photo shoot. She is so dang cute and is always so quick to give me a smile. 

After "nap time" (AKA: Jumping in his crib) Owen and Elsie spent a little time playing together on the floor.

  
While Miles helped finish up dinner (my schedule did not go according to plan) Elsie conked out on me.

We had pink buttermilk pancakes. Unfortunately, once they were cooked you could hardly tell they were pink.

I wanted to serve them with strawberries as well, but apparently when you wait to buy strawberries until the day before/day of Valentine's Day they are nowhere to be found. So instead, Miles chose to have a plethora of meat - sausage, spam, and bacon - he said he couldn't decide on one. Here is our little piggy with all the pork products: 

  
After dinner, I gave Miles and Owen their presents. Owen opened a bag with some candy and chocolates and two new Hot Wheels cars.

Elsie watched on while doing her favorite pastime (sucking on her hands).

Then Miles opened his present. Normally I don't go all out just for v-day. Mostly, the holiday was just an excuse to give this to him. It is a signed print (by the artist and the author of the book for which it was drawn) of the book cover for Brandon Sanderson's Way of Kings.

I was pretty excited to give it to him. Miles is so hard to buy for and I knew he would not be expecting this at all. He said he saw the post about the sale on Facebook (where I had seen it) and almost bought both of the prints that were for sale (the other was for the last Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light, cover art) but didn't because it was a little pricey. However, he said if he could only choose one, he would have chosen the one I got for him. I think I won major "good wife" credits. :)

After presents, we ended the night with some balancing acts. Miles showed Owen how he used to balance him on his hand when he was a baby.

Owen at 4 mo:

Owen at 2 yr 9 mo:

So of course, Elsie had to get in on the fun as well. She hasn't demonstrated the same standing skills as Owen at such a young age, but at 4.5 mo it's not too bad.

It was a great day of love and family fun. Even though it's a commercialized holiday where people often manufacture tokens and acts of love, I don't mind. I enjoy celebrating it and making the day a little more special. Hopefully both my children and husband feel love all throughout the year, but just a little something extra special on V-day.