valentine's day recap

i love valentine's day.

so when i realized i left all my valentine's day decorations at our house in salt lake i was just a little bummed. i figured we'd just need to make up for it by making super cute valentines for friends instead. for the girls we made gumball necklaces. the boys got a red hot wheels car + 3 red mini tootsie pops (i got the idea here, but i wheelie like mine better), and then i made a treat for all my nursery kids at church, too. i wanted to do something cheap and easy since they are all so little and don't even know what's going on half the time, so i dipped some strawberry heart marshmallows that i already had in some chocolate and added some sprinkles. then i packaged them up with a tag that said "you're a sweetheart." simple and easy, but pretty good looking, too!

i had plans to make my chocolate coconut truffles for all of my friends, but they are all so dang picky (no chocolate, no bitter chocolate, no coconut, etc.) that most of them ended up with pink glitter ball cookies packaged in a little red heart dish (which i forgot to take a picture of). they turned out pretty cute (although i'd say the term "ball" is used loosely) and tasted really good, especially for being chocolate-free. i never trust martha recipes. they usually look great on her site and then don't taste as good as i expect them to. but i had TWO martha recipes wow me for valentine's day! for dessert last night i made her individual dark chocolate pudding cakes topped with ice cream and...mmm. i felt ill the rest of the night-they were so rich. i think next time i'll skip the cinnamon and try using dark chocolate chips in place of the white chocolate, but otherwise it's a great recipe.

as for our little family's day: nash shoved a plate in my face early yesterday morning while i was still sleeping. on it was two pieces of toast (loaded with butter. steve said he even had to scrape some off before they brought it to me. i guess nash knows i like butter!), an orange, and a banana and said "happy balentime's day!" steve left for work and i realized he took the car seats with him, so we had to change our plans for the day. we stayed home and cleaned and played with cousins, then steve brought the car seats back after lunch. we delivered valentines, then came home to make dinner. steve requested heart-shaped steak. he was kidding, but you don't mess with me when it comes to holidays! so heart-shaped steak he got. along with sauteed onions + mushrooms, mashed cauliflower, and salad. the kids had heart-shaped pb&j (normally they eat what we eat at dinner, but i made a special exception last night, partly because i forgot to feed them lunch!). i delivered one of the aforementioned cakes to a friend, then we gorged on the rest, gave the kids their little valentine gifts (nash got a batman movie + a lollipop and haven got an eloise wilkin book + a gumball necklace) and watched sunday's desperate housewives and an episode of the sopranos.

valentine's day success!

see what happens when i don't take pictures? i write too much. props to you if you're still reading this!