balentimes week

Tis’ the conclusion of Valentines week for us.  I do realize, that it is actually only one day,  but I like to spread out fun holidays!   I really like the smaller holidays: vday/st. Patricks/easter/ that kinda thing...  Don’t get me wrong, birthdays and Christmas are wonderful!  But, as a parent, I find kids can kind of crash during these immense days of gift giving and tradition pushing J  Smaller holidays, aren’t stressful or pricey, and I’ve enjoyed doing little things all week to celebrate.

We kicked off the week stickering and folding cards for all of Jesse’s buds... each day we incorporated hearts or red things into our meals, clothing, and crafts.  I had a stack of valentines’ books to pull out for the week, but it just hit me now, that I forgot! 

Anyways, when the day arrived, Jesse was so excited as we’d been “building up” to the day.  He was totally psyched with his window stickers in the morning!  We got out to a friends for a playdate, and we all enjoyed the bright streamers and paper chains that decorated the Potter’s house.  Jesse enjoyed giving a spongebob valentine to pretty much everyone he saw that day.  Newborns, adults and Cooper included! 

We had pancakes as a special supper, and gave the kids a chocolate marshmallow heart for dessert.   Jesse kept saying all day, “This is the best balentimes day ever!”  And everything we encountered was, “And this is my balentimes day breakfast...and my balentimes day lego time...and my balentimes day van ride...”  And when he let out a monster fart at the table, “Oh Mommy! That is my balentimes day toot!”  What a boy.   Janna and Robyn, of course, just went with the flow.  They had some special bonding time after Jesse went to bed J

Dave and I are celebrating this weekend.  We have a few restaurant gift cards, and so Katie is gonna hang around the house one night  after the kids go to bed sometime in the next few days, so we can get out for dinner.  Pretty much my favorite thing.  Quality time and food!    Dave did make me a very nice card, though...and that was just great for me.  I know I’m loved. 

Today, though, I think the kids and I will conclude the Vday activities with making some pink peppermint playdough.  A friend posted the recipe she had made with her kids, and I wanna try it out.  We’ll see how the rest of the day goes... I d o have lots to do around the house, including a new recipe for supper.   I will be attacking cider glazed pork chops with creamy herbed polenta tonight....

I have really been enjoying making one new recipe per week!  We’ve had lots of different yummy things...most of them out of my Canadian living or chatelaine magazines.   Keeps dinner time interesting, but not too pricey or too much work with just tackling one new recipe per week.  I’m a big sale shopper and try to plan affordable gluten free meals based on what’s on sale... and so sometimes things get feeling boring.  This has been keeping things a bit fresh and fun.  I’ve also decided to try one new kiddie lunch thing per week- Gluten FULL – as I also find we can get into the same rut of a handful of the same things all the time.  Today, I made pizza muffins?!  They had little bits of cheese, pepperoni and red peppers in a muffinish/pizza crustish batter, and then you could top em with whatever... I REALLY loved them.  The kids just found them ok.  They both picked away at them..but probably only ate 1 of the 2 I gave them...  Here they are with the recipe before hitting up the oven:

Anyways, kids are up. Gotta run. Thanks for reading. I’m out!