My Valentine's Day

Before we had kids, Sweetie and I celebrated Valentine’s in the usual way: flowers, nice dinner out, professions of undying love for each other (haha, jk). But now that we have little ones, the day has come to mean more than just a romantic evening for two.

Dinners out for two or even just a hockey game for two (which we passed up on last night!) are fewer and far between, mostly because we don’t like to leave the little sweeties out. Don’t get me wrong, though, couples’ time is very important, too! We are so lucky to get some quality “us” time like on our trip to Asheville, NC a couple weeks back or our post-Valentine’s trip to NYC this weekend! But Valentine’s Day is now about “us” as a family unit.

This year we decided to enjoy a nice Valentine’s dinner at home. And then I decided to throw a special breakfast in the mix and poof! I think I spent a good part of my day cooking and cleaning up after my messes (though Sweetie got the brunt of it after dinner – thanks ST!), but you know what? I absolutely loved doing it!

Here’s the breakfast that started the day off:

In this breakfast:

1. Grits with shredded Mexican Cheese and Applegate Bacon sprinkled on top. Used the grits part of this Creamy Shrimp Grits with Prosciutto recipe from Epicurious.com to make ’em.
2. Fried eggs cut out in the shape of hearts. 
3. Strawberries

Let it be known that Little Sis was never a fan of grits until I made these. Now SHE’S the one that actually requests them! And gotta be honest – as you can see, the eggs are a little over-cooked which means that Daddy and I were the ones who ate them all up, not the girls. PI-CKY! 🙂   After breakfast it was time to get dinner going. Started prep work on Nana’s Melt-In-Your-Mouth Baby Back Ribs. Mmmm. My mouth just watered typing this! 🙂   Next up was lunch. Actually, the girls had decided early on in the week that they were going to buy lunch on Valentine’s Day because Cheese Dunkers are one of their fave school lunches. So I sent this one in w/ them the day before.  

In this lunch:

1. Turkey and ham sandwiches with cheddar cheese on Nature’s Own WhiteWheat Bread cut into hearts and poked w/ heart picks.
2. My awesome BBF buddy Corey Valley’s Family Fresh Meals’ Easy Homemade Tortilla Chips cut out in the shape of hearts (I’m sensing a theme!)
3. Kiwi for one Peeled Snacks AppleClusters for the other.
4. GoGo Squeez AppleSauces to go
5. Homemade Frosted Heart Sugar Cookies that I just took out of the freezer.

The whole day wasn’t spent cooking and cleaning. I spent a fair amount of time distracted by Facebook, dropped a car off at the shop, played barber shop and gave the hubby a haircut, went out to lunch with the hubby and even got to mess around w/ my new “toy”. This is a whole separate post in itself, but I’m just giddy over this new Yamaha keyboard. Now I just gotta snag my old books from my parents’!

Ok, back to work:

Next up was dessert prep – Heavenly Chocolate Mousse – which by the way, was SOOOO easy to make! Got this free sample from Julia Dotson from Wildtree and thought this would be the perfect day to try it out! You can find ’em on Facebook too: Julia’s Wildtree Facebook Page. 

And then cornbread. Big Sis found this recipe from a Holly Hobby online game years ago. It’s been a family fave ever since. Here it is: Holly Hobby Corn Muffins Recipe

Here’s how our dinners turned out! And before you ask, the parents don’t have to eat carrots because we had salads for lunch. Well, at least the hubby did and I had a couple bites of his.

And yes, dessert. It turned out really yummy as easy as it was to make! Hubby ate this whole thing. Before I knew it, his was gone. I asked him, you seriously ate ALL that?!? and he said, YUP! Big Sis and I ate half and well, Little Sis found that she just isn’t a fan of Chocolate Mousse which is no surprise since she doesn’t like most things chocolate, so she got a strawberry cupcake and Annie’s Homegrown Pink Lemonade Fruit Snacks. Be sure to check Wildtree’s  Heavenly Chocolate Mousse out for yourself! It’s so easy and so good!

And finally, a little gift for the little sweeties. Sorry, big Sweetie got nuthin’ but my undying love and devotion. haha!

Thanks so much for stopping by! Feel free to make my day by leaving me a comment, following my blog via email, on Facebook or on Instagram. The more the merrier!

Christine, aka happyvballgirl 🙂

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