Love is in the air.....

On most holidays, even the small ones like "Thank a Mailman Day", I tend to not just acknowledge the holiday, but I like to CELEBRATE all day long.

I Love Valentine's Day. This is the day I am ALLOWED to make everything heart shaped...morning pancakes, sandwiches, cookies, etc...I fit as many as I can into the day. One of my favorite parts is watching all the men in the candy aisle of the store trying to decide what to get their Valentine. So thoughtful, and yet slightly confused....My favorite "Valentine Spotting" this year was a big burly country guy in a big truck, look over at me as I'm about to turn onto the street and give the biggest "Yeah, I did good" grin as he's holding a big vase of pink roses in his lap. I love it. I love a day that is set aside to show someone how much you care, whether friendship or romantic.

I'm pretty sure this was the best Valentine's Day I have ever had....


My oldest had fun coming up with his Valentine's for his friends at Pre-school. I gave him about 4 or 5 different ideas for Valentine's and he chose oranges...and was very specific about what he wanted them to look like and had fun making them....



He wanted orange writing, not the red like I had originally :)



He also wanted orange paint for the hearts, not red like I tried again

He said they were "so cute" and was really excited to give them to his friends. **Love**

In the morning before my oldest went to Pre-school he went and dug out the V-day gift him and his dad hid for him to give me...He was SO proud to give it to me...my heart melted...

This year my husband and I decided to make each others V-day gift...we both ended up cheating though and bought something to go with our handmade gifts :) But, they say that the way to a man's heart is through his stomach, so part of my handmade gift was food :)

I found this recipe on Pinterest and since the Hubbs loves Red Velvet, I decided to make Red Velvet Crinkle cookies to sneak into his lunch for work the next day...



Reaction??? These were AMAZING! Oh my these will be made again :)

I also made these bad boys for our "movie in" last night after the boys went to bed....

Mini Pretzels with a dark chocolate *kiss* on top...Bake @200 degrees for 3-4 minutes. Remove from oven and press M & M's on top....Salty and sweet...yuuuum!

Once the hubbs was home from work we gave the boys their Valentine's...

Car cards, "Cars 2" and "Cars" playing cards

...and BALLOONS!

The boys made their dad a handprint craft and got him some shoes so they can be "just like dad"

I have a slight obsession with Converse shoes :)

For dinner we had homemade lasagna, the hubbs fav green beans, salad, and french bread. YUM!

We put the boys to bed early and watched "Money Ball"(GREAT movie!)......okay and the hubbs let me watch the new episode of 19 Kids and Counting (SO nice of him)!

We ended up having such a great day...I think the best part was the amount of thought that we put into the day for each other and our boys. We loved making our gifts for each other (Yeah, I didn't mention them, but they were SO thoughtful, and will be kept between the hubbs and I...)...and I think it's a tradition we want to continue.

I think even if you don't have a "special" someone, you are still able to make someone else's day special...it's all in how you look at the day.