Day of LOVE

Today we celebrated love. Valentine’s Day to me is a lot more than Hallmark cards. Although I can totally see how this Hallmark holiday would be dreaded by many. As I sit here and remember back to my middle school years – I think of cheap carnations and how quantity of flowers signified the number of people who were friends with you, secretly admired you, or loved you — all color coded, of course, so everyone can easily know how loved or unloved you are. What a great way to increase the insecurities of a preteen.

But fast forward past the years of dating my husband, where Valentine’s Day became almost a test of love – necessitating roses, chocolates, stuffed animals, romantic movies that paint a picture of romance that is far from
realistic, and I have finally and truly developed a love for this day of love.

A day to enjoy sweets, hearts, and sweethearts. A day to enjoy friends, family, children, and love! Rainbows, and unicorns, and everything pink and red! (Note to self – Teagan desperately needs a pair of ruby red glitter slippers!!!) What could be better than an excuse to construct cute little valentines for your friends?

There were so many great valentine ideas floating around on pinterest this year. In fact one of my best friends made the heart shaped crayons – so cute! And I sewed these roll up crayon pouches, I have no clue what they are called or even if they have a name. I will update this post tomorrow with a link to my inspiration. Even the unborn valentines received a portable crayon case, a crayon rollup, a crayon cozy (oh I like that one) of their own.

Valentine’s Day – an excuse to turn any and all food red or pink and cut everything into the shape of a heart. I made some traditional peanut butter blossom cookies with a twist for a little Love Gathering. Also inspired by pinterest, also need to update with source – reddish cookies with Hershey Hugs instead of Hershey Kisses. I know I could have made these cookies perfectly red with gel food coloring but I wanted to challenge myself to be a little more natural. So in lieu of artificial coloring I added fresh beet juice and lemon. The lemon (acidic) is supposed to prevent the beet from reacting with the baking soda (alkaline) and turning the cookies brown. Apparently the more acidic the beets, the redder the result. Unfortunately, the prepackaged peanut butter cookie mix only called for a few tablespoons of liquid, not leaving much room for concentrated color without watering down the dough. I’m sure I can improve these cookies but it will require experimenting.

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But before our little party, the kids and I had a rendezvous at the mall with Grandma and Grandpa Bill. Destination – Build a Bear Factory, Operation – Build a Bear. Nathan was beyond excited as you can see in the photos below.

He chose to stuff a penguin just like the penguins at Sea World. He really absorbed the entire process of bringing his “bear” to life. Meet Captain Hook, the penguin!

And Teagan stuffed Pinkie, the pink Hello Kitty, with grandpa’s help. She was content just sitting on his lap. She got all shy when the employee was talking to her (arm hiding face). Nathan helped her bathe Pinkie while Teagan used the grooming brush to brush her own hair.