Happy Valentine's Day

This year Valentine's Day was on a Sunday, but we started our celebration on Friday when we had date night. We had our date night, so the kids had time with Grandma and Grandpa where they, along with cousin Benjamin, received some fun goodies for the holiday.

Meanwhile, we were out having a nice date night at the melting pot. We try to go there annually as it is delicious and a fun experience, but kind of a splurge in calories, cost, and time. We had a really nice meal.

We did our family celebration on Sunday. After church, we had heart-shaped grilled cheese along with tomato soup (which Hannah calls "Tomato soup with no tomatoes". She loves it and is always very specific about how she asks for it. I think she's afraid I am going to switch out Campbells with something authentic brimming with real tomatoes).

Next we did gifts. Each kid gets one small gift, a book, and this year also some candy since their school doesn't allow candy so they didn't really have it otherwise. I didn't really plan ahead for the candy because I forgot all the schools would celebrate on Friday so it would really all be gone by then. I am bummed because I like to get some red tootsie pops for myself and they were totally out by the time I looked. But I found some stuff for the kids since they aren't as picky as me.

For dinner we had heart-shaped red and white ravioli (thanks Costco) with sauce, garlic bread, and salad with pink dressing (thanks Pizza Shoppe, though really no thanks. I love it at the restaurant, but I think the store-bought kind tastes like Miracle Whip and I consider Miracle Whip to be unfit for human consumption. Everyone except me had pink dressing.). For dessert we had gumball ice cream, which turned out super well again this year. It is kind of a pain because the way I make it involves cooking bubble gum in the ice cream base to get it to taste like gum, and that's a bit of a sticky mess since heat and gum don't exactly mix. But it tastes so good that I am not sure I could switch to bubble gum extract without losing something. So for now we are sticking with the mess.

We had a nice holiday and the kids got a three day weekend for Presidents' Day too, so it was an enjoyable weekend.