I Love My Valentines!

This year Valentine's Day was completely full of Valentiney festivities. 

It started with the kids finding their Valentine gifts from Jaime and I. The girls received a Beanie Boo stuffed animal and the boys got Magformers. Then we had a yummy breakfast of Stuffed French Toast. After kitchen cleanup everyone got showered and dressed to go out and make some Valentine deliveries. Jaime came up with a wonderful idea of buying a dozen roses and handing one out to people the kids chose. They each got 3 roses and chose three people to give them to. They chose friends, church teachers (present and past ones) and neighbors. We drove around town delivering flowers. 

Although Tyler looks extremely nervous or scared he was excited to give this rose to Christina our neighbor. She wasn't there so her son took it for her and she received it later that night when she got home. She came over the next day to thank Tyler for it. He likes to talk to Christina when she's out in the yard or going on a walk. I think he really likes her because she will give him chips sometimes when he's over in her yard. :)

The recipients were surprised and had wonderful reactions. There were a few who weren't home but someone else in the house took the flower and said they would give it to them. We got phone calls and messages from them later asking to talk to the child and thank them. The love was spread and shared that afternoon. It was so fun. 

Brother Ritchie was home but not Sister Ritchie so he told Lindsey to take the flower back and give it again to sister Ritchie. Sister Ritchie was pleasantly surprised when Lindsey gave it to her. 

Tyler and Sister Salsbury (Grandma)

Tyler and Aidan have both had Brother and Sister Salsbury as primary teachers. They were released when Tyler was in their class because she's been battling cancer for so long and was under going treatments. She said she didn't want to be released but it was getting to hard. She still will talk to and help my boys in church and I really appreciate it. They've let the kids call them grandma and grandpa. When we drove into their drive on Valentine's Day grandpa was out getting the mail. Tyler handed him the rose and grandpa said he can go inside and give it to grandma. As they get to walking inside we hear grandpa say "Grandma look whose here to see you!" Sister Salsbury loved the rose. 

As soon as we got home I started on our Valentine dinner that we were having for lunch rather than dinner since the kids were invited to a friends for a birthday party and dinner. 

I did a fondue theme this  year. I made a cheese sauce and put it in two crock-pot little dippers. I borrowed my sisters chocolate fondue fountain and placed it in the middle of the table. We had ham, lil' smokies, broccoli, and french baguettes to dip in the cheese. For the chocolate we had strawberries, pineapple, angel food cake, and the plan was bananas but I forgot to put those on the table. Haha

The kids each got a fondue fork for foods to dip in cheese and another for foods to dip in chocolate. They loved it! They thought we should do it all the time. :) Oh and it was sooo good. 

After lunch the kids got to play with their valentine gifts and enjoy the rest of their afternoon. I spent the afternoon cleaning up lunch. Fondue things take a lot of time to get clean, especially since they don't go in the dishwasher or submerged in a sink of soapy water. 

At 5:30 we took the kids to their friends house. Jaime's cousin Ruben had stopped by at that same time to visit so we visited till a little after 6. After he left we considered where we wanted to go for dinner. We knew restaurants would be packed and the wait to get a table would be long. We got messages from Marcus that they were in town and had stopped at Zip's for dinner. We thought that since they were here and we didn't have other set plans we would go see them. It was fun to visit with Martin, Diana, Marcus, and Miranda. (I feel like I should put Mom instead of Diana in there so they are all M names. LOL) We decided to get dinner since we were there. 

We just visited for a couple hours there until it was time for us to go get the kids at 8. We ended up staying at our friends' house visiting until 9.

 It wasn't a romantic Valentine's Day but it was definitely a fun, packed day. And it'll probably be one my kids remember. :)

The next day we went to the 10:30 am sacrament meeting then left to take the kids to stay with Aunt Bel and Uncle Chris since their wasn't school due to Presidents Day. I tell ya, these kids are blessed to be so wanted. :)

It'd been a long busy weekend and the kids were tired from their late nights. 

They slept on the way.