That was not the case in the Hunniford Household. We set alarms, not to prepare each other some romantic breakfast in bed, but because Sam had an 8:15am basketball game, 20 minutes away, for which he needed to arrive about 10 minutes early. Pour the coffee into travel mugs and pack some cereal for the car! I think it was lunchtime before we remembered to wish each other a Happy Valentine's Day.
Please don't let that little anecdote lead you to believe that I had forgotten about the special day until lunchtime on said day - that would be particularly impossible when you have children in the 2-10 sect. Especially when you had a party to plan for 96 Kindergartners. Don't worry, it only took me about 3 house, and as many episodes of the last season of Parenthood, to assemble 96 party favors, cut apart 96 sticker sheets and organize 5 class bags full of party supplies. It could have been a lot worse (I know, because the Winter party was!).
And I needed something to do in the evenings, anyhow, as 2 of my 3 valentines were in Florida Tue-Fri preceding the big day. Which two? The oldest and the youngest - more on that in a separate post. And yes, that meant that Annabelle missed her class party. No, that does not mean that she skipped making her first Valentine's Box, or assembling a class set of Valentine's for her friends and teachers. My heart didn't have it in me to make her skip all that, so we prepped her stuff early this year and she returned to school to find a stuffed box of treats and cards waiting for her.
Sam also prepared a class set of Valentines - ok, so I did a lot of the work for both of them, but he DID write everyone's names, and his own name, on all 20 cards. Yes, he wrote a card to himself. Because when you're Valentines are awesome, you want to make sure you get one.
That was the class set, though. Then there was the afternoon that Sam said,
"I want to make a heart and I want to write I love you on it. I'm going to give it to Riko."
"Oh yeah, buddy? Why Riko?"
"Because she's my favorite girl."
"Why is she your favorite girl?"
"Cause she rides my bus with me and she's in my class. So can we do it?"
...and we finally got around to our project...
"I'm going to need pink sparkly paper and girlie stickers."
So there you have it. Sam's first real Valentine for a girl of his choosing. I was in his class for Friday Readers that morning and he pulled it out of his bag and handed it to her before he even put his coat away. Love it.
The class party that afternoon was fun and low key. The kiddos heard a story, ate a pure-sugar cookies, created Valentines to take home for a special someone in their life, and then spent the rest of the time digging through their treasures from their friends. As promised by their teachers, looking through their loot was all they wanted to do and the loved it.
Back to the day of. After that early morning basketball game, we stopped for donuts on the way home. And we kinda ate our way through the rest of the day, because that's how this family does holidays. After I ran a spontaneous half marathon (feel free to be proud of me, no one else was and two years ago I couldn't run two miles...), I made Cinnamon Roll Monkey Bread for lunch. You're Welcome, family. And those kiddos seemed to remember that last year brought with it all-things-heart-shaped and were excited to see what was for dinner. Umm...frozen pizza was the plan, since Chris and I were busy cooking adult foods, so I pulled this out of my hat. Not bad, eh?
Adult food! We really don't like going out to eat on Valentine's day. Overpriced, overproduced food. We'd rather a fancy restaurant on a regular night. So I devised the Chocolate and Cheese Challenge. Each player was to create one dish containing cheese and one dish containing chocolate and a winner would be declared for each round.
For the cheese round: I made Gruyere Grilled Cheese. It had shallots sauteed in bacon fat, and the bread was toasted in bacon fat as well. Chris made Roast Beef and Brie Sliders with a Red Pepper Relish. Believe it or not, he won that round. We decided my sandwiches needed thinner slices of bread and a bit of actual bacon.
For the chocolate round: I made a Chocolate and Salted Carmel Tart. It was a bit tedious, but my first attempt at REAL carmel was a success. Chris made these bite sized treats that consisted of pecans wrapped in bacon then dipped in chocolate. Unfortunately his recipe lied and told his to cook the bacon for waaaay too long, and then the bacon fat messed with his melted chocolate. Next time, shorter bake time and drizzle the chocolate rather than dip. I won that round.
So there you have it, our low-key, high-cal Heart Day. What will I turn into a heart next year?!
**Chris also sent me a box of chocolate covered strawberries and I gifted him a few manly sweet treats. Seriously, our stomachs are the paths to our hearts.
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