Valentine's Day Forever

I love when a fun holiday lands on a weekend so that it can be fully enjoyed by all members of the family at the same time. This Valentine's Day we celebrated at home with some special touches to make it feel more festive. Cake is always requested for holidays at home and I'm always happy to oblige. This year it meant a boxed red velvet cake (it'd been a long week) with homemade cream cheese frosting (because duh, not that long) and their favorite root beer from our local natural food grocer.

I pulled out all of the pink and red decorations from holidays past and then added my new macrame yarn garland and finger knit one in pink. I have a feeling they'll be used for the next few November birthday parties unless Ruby stops loving pink as much as I do. She helped decorate with plenty of handmade hearts to make sure our walls weren't bare and made sure she was around to taste test the cake mix and frosting.

The kids got Valentines from their great grandparents in the mail that afternoon with a little fun money inside so Brett volunteered to take all three of them to Target to pick something out and run a few errands while I finished the cake and enjoyed a quiet house for the first time in weeks. It was one of those gifts of time alone doing something I enjoyed that was worth more than any store bought gift I could've received and made all the more valuable after about six weeks of having all three kids mostly to myself.

It was so fun having both arms free to add sprinkles to the cake in the shape of a heart, decorate the top of the piano, fashion a quick little photo holder for a cake topper, pick out my favorite InstaThis print of the three kids, fuss with party straws, and take pictures of everything to help remember Smith's first Valentine's Day celebration before reminding fingers to stay out of the frosting or helping clean up a spilled drink.

The kids' school doesn't allow sugary treats or food items to be passed out with Valentines but they did have a designated time in the school day on Thursday to trade them so we used some of what we had on hand to make Valentines for each of the kids in their classes. Sebastian has fewer kids so we used clay to make oven bake hearts that he painted and wrote his name on the back of. Ruby has a lot more kids so she colored on paper cards that she made a few of everyday leading up to the party. She then painted two clay hearts for her teachers because she didn't want to miss out on painting something.

I decorated the top of the cake but then thought it needed something else so I added a photo that InstaThis sent over. It didn't get any frosting on it, thank goodness, so it can be used in another project later or framed.

Brett picked up some cards for the kids and myself while he was at Target and wrote them a sweet message in each of them. Then we had pizza and cake and root beer (their favorite treats) and talked about silly things in between sharing one thing we loved about each member of the family. It's a tradition I hope we can keep going for as long as we get to share our Valentine's Day together at home.

Later that evening Brett and I enjoyed catching up on some quality time after the kids were asleep. We will get our turn to have a fun night out on the town soon but this particular weekend called for a night in by the fire cuddling while we caught up on a favorite show and reminisced over this time last year when we were eagerly awaiting the arrival of Smith and I was too full of child to do much of anything! Oh how things have changed in one year's time.

I hope your Valentine's Day held a little love in it from someone. I hope you got some cake, too!

-Rachel