In the spirit of Valentine's Day

This year Valentine's Day was pretty low key, which was fun. Chris and I made a deal to not do much in the way of gifts since we are about to travel and need to save that money. In all our years of marriage, I could count on one hand the number of times we've gone out on Valentine's Day and I think all or most of those were before we had kids. I actually prefer it that way though, there are so many people out on Valentine's and we just don't need to celebrate that way to feel loved anymore. Plus, Chris' birthday is one week later and we almost always go out for that, so I have learned I actually prefer the quiet day at home as a family.

This year, we did our annual treasure hunt for the kids (it wasn't meant to be annual, but they look forward to it and it's become a fun tradition) and we gave them each a box of chocolates, a mechanical pencil and then some rainbow loom bands. Chris and I exchanged cards and he got me some flowers and chocolate covered strawberries!

During the day we hung out as a family and ended up at the mall. The kids had some money burning a hole in their pocket that they wanted to spend, so we went and walked around. They also all desperately needed new shoes. We found a GREAT deal on shoes (all 3 boys for $50!) and then we treated them to some Orange Julius. We told them we only had enough to get two, so they paired up and chose a flavor together!!

 

When we got home I had planned a fondue night, but during our cheese course, Chris' parents called and wanted to go to dinner, so we ate cheese fondue, ate dinner out and then came home and had chocolate fondue and chocolate covered strawberries. No one ate much chocolate as we were all pretty full, but that's okay because we just had leftovers the next day! Chris and I rented a movie for later after the kids were in bed, but I was so lame and just fell asleep - some fun Valentine's date I am, huh??

 

It was such a perfect Valentine's Day - I was with the ones I loved and that's the perfect day for me!