Friday, February 15, 2013

Valentine's Day Menu and Gift Surprises

Happy Late Valentine's Day! I hope that you all had a splendid and blessed day. I know we did! My intention was to post this last night, however I was a little distracted by Alyssa's new music program (review product) and an upcoming review. I am currently trying to work on all three.

I love acknowledging Valentine's Day with my family. We usually exchange gifts and make special meals throughout the day! Alyssa made each of us a Valentine card. Actually, she made me several cards this week! I also enjoy celebrating throughout the entire month of February, so don't be surprised if you see a post here and there with hearts or about LOVE.

Our Valentine's Day Menu
Alyssa's Breakfast  
I made her a heart-shaped fried egg with heart-shaped pancakes and strawberries. She showed her appreciation by expressing her gratitude in words and actions. She thanked me for the meal and told me how good it was a thousand times. She also gave me tons of hugs and kisses! I saw this idea on Pinterest. I usually waste a lot of the pancake and cut out a heart using cookie cutters, but this lady used a squeeze bottle to draw and fill in the heart.
Pancake Before Shot
Pancake After Shot with Strawberry Hearts
I figured if I could draw hearts ... I could also give her hugs and kisses. 

Alyssa's Lunch
I had different plans for today's lunch, but I didn't have all of the groceries. I will make it tomorrow because Alyssa and Jeff went into town yesterday. This is what I ended up doing. I cut the bread, cheese, and deli corned beef into heart shapes using one of my larger cookie cutters. I made a mustard heart smiley face on her sandwich and let her see it before I placed the other piece of bread on top. Then, I carefully cut the bell pepper and green apple using a smaller cookie cutter. This was a little harder to do, but I managed. I used the smallest cookie cutter to cut smoked swiss and cheddar cheese for her crackers. She was so excited about her lunch that she rambled off her meal items as soon as her father walked in the door. She told him that he missed out on a great lunch. I felt bad. I wish I had brought him a special lunch too. He prefers that we save on gas and not make unnecessary trips. The house we are building is approximately 45 minutes away.
Mustard bottle squirted out a little too fast.
This lunchmeat was tough to cut! I usually use turkey. 
Weird and maybe even a little creepy looking but she liked it!
Our Family Dinner
We usually do a crab legs and spinach artichoke dinner. We cooked a different "special" meal since we are having that particular dinner at our friend's house for her birthday on Sunday. We ate lobster because my husband found it on sale yesterday! YAH BABY! He cooked dinner so that I could work on upcoming reviews and posts. I enjoyed spending the evening with my loved ones after dinner. He made baked sweet potatoes and sweetened them with his brown sugar sauce. Roasted garlic asparagus was also on the menu - it seems to be a new favorite dish. You can read about that recipe here. The photo below doesn't look very appealing or appetizing ... at least that is what my hubby said, but it was delicious. I am so grateful that we were able to try something different for dinner tonight.

Surprise Gifts
Our friends couldn't resist ... they sent Alyssa a gigantic Valentine's Day card. They came out to the house to see the progress and handed the card to my husband. He brought it home and Alyssa freaked. She said, "It was the biggest card she had ever seen or received!"
This is actually sitting on the couch!
They are all dog lovers! Can you tell she's giddy?
I was running errands the other day and found two awesome gifts for Alyssa ON SALE! Yippee! We bought her a Play-Doh Rapunzel Hair Design Set and a Barbie DVD set. Several of the items were on her Christmas wish list so we decided to surprise her by getting them as Valentine's Day gifts from us. We probably shouldn't have with all the house expenses, but it is hard to break traditions. She is going to have a blast using them both on Saturday. It should keep her preoccupied for a couple of hours. I might be able to catch up on housework that day. The DVD set included the movies: Mariposa, Fairytopia, and Thumbelina. She watched Mariposa at a friend's house recently.

How was your Valentine's Day? Do you have any traditions? If so, what are your traditions?

I will link this post at Blogging Through the Alphabet found at Ben and Me. We are covering letter "V" this week. I will also link up at the Montessori Monday hosted by Deb at Living Montessori Now, Homeschooling on the CheapI Can Teach My Child's Show-and-Share Saturday Link-UpLearn and Link at Mama to 4 Blessings, and Teach Beside Me's Share it Saturday.
3Boys&aDog DEALS!ICanTeachMyChild.comMontessori MondayTeach Beside Me

Thank you for visiting my blog today. I hope you'll come back soon and please feel free to leave a comment. I love reading your comments. I really appreciate them too!

God bless, 
Tracey

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