Valentines Day

On Valentine’s Day, my sister posted the following on facebook:

“Happy unimaginative, consumerist-oriented and entirely arbitrary, manipulative and shallow interpretation of romance day”

I’ve never been much for celebrating Valentines Day and let’s face it, Justin and I are probably two of the worst gift-givers on any given holiday, anniversary, or birthday.  While I agree with my sister that having a day set apart during the year when you do what you should be doing every day takes away much of the “meaning” behind it – However, I did, for a change, want to make it a little more special for my kids – and not just because society told me I’m supposed to. 

I’m not a morning person so cooking my kids a special Valentine’s breakfast was not going to happen – especially since Abigail had early morning band.  Instead I made blueberry muffins the night before as well as pasta salad for them to take for lunch - they make themselves sandwiches 95% of the time so they are always excited to have something different.  They also had a few small treats on the counter to start their sugar rush.

Carly was excited to take the Valentine’s box to school that she and Abigail had decorated.

We managed to create the kids’ Valentine’s from candy we already had.  It was a little tricky coming up with clever slogans to go along with the treat.  Abigail had already taken all her Valentines to school before I took a picture – all of hers were made with the fun Skittle packs that I bought in Hong Kong – they are packaged in a neat triangular wrapper.  (Sad to think this is Abigail’s last year celebrating Valentine’s Day at school).  Jason gave the boys in his class gummy hotdogs and hamburgers (also from Hong Kong) and the girls in his class got Skittles.   We had just enough Crunch bars to create Carly’s Valentines.

Justin and I ate lunch at CPK that afternoon.  They had an awesome Valentines special with entirely too much food, but we managed to eat every last bit.  Katie was super excited about the carnation they gave us at the restaurant.  I love that we live close enough to Justin’s work to go out to lunch every so often.

The kids were sugared up when they got home from school so the Valentines cookies I had ready were appreciated, but unnecessary.   Justin and I were still pretty full from lunch so there was no big elaborate meal – though after the kids went to bed Justin prepared chicken enchiladas for me to eat the next day – yum!

Not to shabby for a “happy unimaginative, consumerist-oriented and entirely arbitrary, manipulative and shallow interpretation of romance day”