A Traditional Valentine's Day

I love traditions....I always have. They provide consistency, familiarity, unity, something for the kids to anticipate, and they ease the pressure of being creative year after year. Traditions allow you to get stuck in a creative rut and it's accepted! However, traditions also create the same blog posts (aka journal entries) year after year. Sorry!

Our Valentine's Day started with the annual hearts taped to doors and the trail of hearts to a surprise. I mixed it up this year and put a homemade valentine to each child at the end of their trail. I figured that they didn't need candy this year. Taylor followed his trail first, but I noticed that he didn't have his valentine, so I asked him, "did you follow your trail to the end?" and he replied, "yes, and there was just a big heart there." I had to show the kid that it was a note to him from me and then he got excited. Poor kid was bummed when all he found was some "big heart". He carried it around the house for most of the day. Very sweet. McKenna enjoyed gathering the hearts. Taylor tried to eat one of the foam hearts as he thought it was candy.

We ate heart-shaped pancakes and pink milk. Yum!
Then the boys decorated sugar cookies and very colorfully, might I add.
Dave brought home flowers for his valentines. Red roses and white daisies for me...
...and a single yellow rose for McKenna. What a cute daddy!!

(Hey Gayle, I used my macro setting for this picture!)

Daddy's valentines

Janene and Devin babysat for us in the evening and Dave and I went to a nice restaurant for dinner. (A kind doctor gave Dave gift cards.) It was a great day!