Valentine's Day!

We celebrated Valentine's Day plenty this year.  Janae had a celebration with her Kindermusik class & each kid is asked to bring Valentines for the rest of the class.  Since it's pretty small (8 kids), people tend to give a little more than your standard punch apart Valentine with a sticker on it.  Jessica (SIL) told me that she was having Heather (new SIL) make cookies for her daughter's Valentines for their class so I quickly texted Heather to see if she could make a dozen for Janae's Kindermusik class too.

Janae with her bouquet.  Heather gave her some photos to pick from & these ladybugs in the shape of hearts were the obvious favorite.

Lana spent Valentine's Day morning with her class at the KC Symphony.  They heard Peter and the Wolf along with a few other kid-friendly pieces.  They were asked to wear their best clothes & Lana picked this dress with her nice shoes & I let her wear her dangle earrings from when she was a flower girl.  She wanted to look as grown-up as possible.

Janae's class had their Vday party in the morning (since some of the kids go home at 11:05).  They played Bingo (or LOVE) and decorated cookies.  Here she is with one of her best school friends, Charlie.

Janae's classroom decorating & eating their cookies.

Then we played "hot potato" where the object was to hold onto the stuffed animal when the music stopped (so you could get a sticker).

The afternoon was spent with Lana's classroom Vday party.  They also decorated cookies, played Bingo and played Tic-Tac-Toe.  Mrs. Anderson asked that the kids open their Valentines while they waited to decorate cookies.  They made their "boxes" at school out of Oatmeal containers. I don't know if you can tell but Lana's picture is at the top of hers (all the kids had their faces on their "boxes").

As I was taking photos - Mrs. Anderson came up to me & stuck this rose in her mouth & said, "Take my picture!"  I think she had a little too much sugar.  ;)

Decorating cookies.

Kevin came home from work with Christopher Elbow chocolates for me (the big box!) and two small boxes of chocolates for the girls.  Janae wasn't a huge fan of them but Lana loved them.  They do have some odd flavors but they somehow work.  (Rosemary infused caramel inside of dark chocolate)...  Such luxury!

Kevin & I took a couples romantic cooking class Friday night after Vday.  We don't normally go out for Valentine's Day but this class was a good excuse to do it.  I've been wanting to take one ever since Gretchen & Darin took one several years ago.  We made: Spinach Salad with sweet onions, spiced pecans & strawberries with a homemade poppy seed dressing,
Roasted Herbed Chateaubriand (with Fresh Made Bearnaise Sauce)
Scalloped White Cheddar Potatoes
Roasted Asparagus with caramelized tomatoes & candied bacon.

For dessert we had Chocolate Nut Gateau with Chocolate Ganache & Whipped Mocha Cream.

We got all these recipes & were able to make a few of the things there that we ate - potatoes, asparagus & steak (some items - bearnaise sauce, poppy seed dressing & cake) were just shown to us due to a lack of time).

See - lots of celebrating Valentine's Day in our house this year!