Love, love, love, love

I am tired.

Valentines Day really shouldn't be such a stressful holiday, right? But it's been consuming me all week. Starting with Bailey wanting to decorate cookies with her best girlfriends on Wednesday.

And you know if Bailey does it, guess who else has to do it! Here's Avery with her cutie pie girl friends.

On Thursday Avery and Cade helped me decorate for the family dance at the Elementary school that evening. Is there anything better than an entire car full of balloons? Avery doesn't think so!

Here's the photo backdrop me and the kids made: They stuck on all 500 white dot stickers!

On Friday, Bailey didn't want to go to school because of the Valentines Tea Party. They pair the girls up with a boy for the event, and this has caused her two weeks of anxiety! She was bawling about having to wear a dress to dance with a boy, and I couldn't see any reason to argue that point, so she wore jeans for the day and told me later she was the only one not wearing a dress. Am I the only mother who doesn't want her daughter pairing up with a boy in the 4th grade? Don't I have at least another 6 years before we should even consider it?!

But she did go, cause she spent a lot of time on her Valentines Box and cards to hand out.

Later that day, I had an Achievement Day Activity at my house with my 12 girls and we made some chocolate mold suckers and wrote "love notes" to each other. They turned out so cute and were super easy!

Meanwhile, I was trying to pull off a Valentines surprise for my own sweetie. I had sent him a certified letter in the mail that he would have to sign for. In it was a love letter and a massage certificate that was scheduled for 4:00. Well he didn't get it, and didn't get it, and I was really stressing about it all day. Turns out they attempted to deliver it but missed him and left a note in the mailbox, so I had to tell him about it and he had to pick it up at the post office ASAP so he didn't miss his massage.

So much for surprises.

But Dave surprised me by arranging for his mom to babysit and we went out to the Pie Dump in his home town. (don't judge a restaurant by it's name, the food is fabulous!)

By the way, Eileen- I am experimenting with my camera. What do I need to adjust here? Several of these pictures were on Program, so is it the exposure, the ISO, the flash, or the white balance that I need to adjust? They're a little too bright.

Saturday was the day to give some love to the kids. I gave them a love note that had tickets to the Peter Pan matinee with some gummy bears for the show. It was really an amazing play!

We followed this with a romantic candlelit dinner with the kids. I told them that if I cook for them, that is a true act of love from me, because I really don't enjoy cooking a big meal. Setting a beautiful table is more fun for me than the cooking part! :)

On the menu: Butternut Squash Ravioli with Sage Brown Butter Sauce, Ciabatta garlic bread and salad. Three hours is all it took me to create this meal. :)

(It would only take the average person one hour, but I told you I'm not very good at this.) And when I finally got everything on the table, it was all cold and we were microwaving our plates. The timing thing is so tricky!!

I usually leave the fancy meals to Dave, but I really wanted to try this recipe, and I must say, it was scrumptious. Click here for the recipe.

I had a chocolate buttercream cake for dessert, but we were all too full to eat it. Maybe for breakfast tomorrow. . . .

I think the reason I was so in the mood to do some gourmet cooking was because I'm looking for a reason to wear my new cutesie-kitchy apron! Somewhere in this busy week, my friend Candace and I managed to get together to sew these aprons we have been wanting to make. They are crazy cute. Thank you Candace for teaching me how to do this!

Whew. I am glad Valentines is over. Now I can move onto the next thing: DISNEYLAND!!!!

We leave in 6 days!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!