A Valentine Marathon

It's a given that Christmas would be a marathon, but Valentine's Day? These days, yes!  I think Valentine's Day is a Hallmark Holiday, but with kids there's new excitement.  I enjoy Finley's anticipation.  Even today, we're preparing a celebration dinner and someone can hardly stand it.  More on the celebration (X 60) next week.

We started our Valentine's Day preparations a couple weeks ago, Finley made picture frames (so did our kindergartners, stole this idea from school) with candy hearts.

Week nights are busy, so we celebrated an early Valentine's Day last Saturday night.  We had a candle-light dinner of pink, heart-shaped pancakes (my kid's a picky eater).  Without talking, I see Heidi & I came up with the same heart-shaped dinner.  Really, how many things can you dye pink and turn into a heart?

For dessert, we had chocolate fondue - how fancy!

The first bite was hot.

I heard Valentine's Day (and other 'little' holidays) have become mini-Christmases for some families.  We fell into this category - presents!  Cool t-shirt to match his cool shoes.

The favorite gift, a "Murf".

Both kids brought Valentine's to their respective daycares and preschool.  It was a team effort - Leslie found the idea on pinterest, I helped punch pieces and Grandma assembled adorable Cookie Monsters - between Finley's daycare, Finley's preschool and Hadley's daycare, we needed over 40!

Finley was excited for his school parties!  He had one at daycare and one at preschool - wow, that's a lot of candy!

His favorite Valentine treat is this punching balloon...I'd forgotten about punching balloons.

Grandma & Grandpa gave each kid a gift card to Target.  Next time, a shopping trip should be included.  After 30 minutes of walking up and down the toy aisles, Finley chose a new car transporter.  Hadley chose formula :)

Grandma received a HUGE box from Gymboree and Hadley had a spring break fashion show.  She'll easily be the best-dressed baby in Cancun.

In the evenings, Patrick tries to take the kids downstairs to burn energy (and to give me a chance to clean up).  He ran up for the camera and told me to come downstairs.  Hadley was going for a ride and loving it!

She also likes the ball pit.  And like anything she tries out, big brother is right behind.

Still no crawling.  Still wants to stand all.the.time.

Elle came to play twice this week! 

We hope you had a Happy Valentine's Day, I love these two...even if they wouldn't smile at the same time.