Happy Heart Day!

We had the loveliest Valentine's Day this year! I just love this holiday and all of the mushiness of it! It probably stems from my days of working at Streamwood Florist. I loved seeing all the men coming in and buying beautiful bouquets of flowers and HUGE cheesy stuffed animals for the women in their lives! The cheesier the better in my book!

So of course I like to spread my love of this holiday to every loved one in my life! Earlier in the week we sent out our Valentines to all of our family...Muah! We heart you all!

Then we set to work on some cute treats for Nolan's teachers...

Of course I found this idea on Pinterest...I'm so FORTUNATE to have YOU as a teacher! Can you guess what was inside?

Fortune Cookies and a Starbucks Card! We are so thankful for the hardworking and loving teachers he has in his life!

Next, it was time to make some Valentines for all of his classmates and friends...

Another Pinterest idea! When I saw it, I knew he would love it! So I did a little design work on the computer and Nolan did the manual labor!

He worked hard at filling these bags with a bouncy ball and 2 chocolate balls.

And I attached the cards. Here are the finished products! They turned out super cute! And I loved working on them with my little preschooler! He worked so hard!

He specifically picked out which balls to give to each person and told me why they should get those certain balls as well.

He had to write his name 16 times! He doesn't {love} to write, but is doing such a good job and his handwriting is really improving with practice every day. I couldn't believe when he got his Valentines home from school how he was one of three students in his class who actually wrote his OWN name on all of his cards! Come on parents...it's great practice and shows ownership in what they are giving! {O.k. I'll get off my soapbox! It's interesting being both a teacher and a parent now! Ha!}

Then, we also had to decorate a bag for him to receive Valentines in at school.

I did not go all out on this or get too creative. We have plenty of years ahead to go wild decorating Valentine boxes. And I really wanted him to do all of the work. I didn't want to be that parent staying up until midnight putting the finishing touches on their CHILD'S project. So I just bought a .99 cent bag from Target and some .99 cent stickers from Walmart and let him go at it! He put stickers on each side and wrote his name across the top and we were done! And he was proud of it!

Heath also wanted to get in on the sticker fun! He made this picture for his Daddy! He told me that he was drawing Buzz...big surprise!

Valentine's Day morning when the boys were up and dressed they came downstairs to get a little gift from us. We bought them the BlueRay of 'Lady and the Tramp'. They had never seen the movie before and were excited to watch the puppy movie later that evening. And we got Brooks a little board book called, You are My Cupcake. It has the most adorable illustrations!

Mark surprised me with these gorgeous hot pink roses!

Even Brooksers was happy to celebrate! Boy do we LOVE this goof!

He rocks our world!

It was so fun dropping Nolan off at school that morning. All the kids were wearing red and he was so excited to bring his home made Valentines into his classroom. And he gave his teachers their treats so sweetly. He had the best morning passing out his cards and having cupcakes.

I picked him up later and he spent the whole car ride home looking at his Valentines and telling me about them.

As soon as we got home we plopped down on the floor to read all of the cards and have some candy too!

His favorite was a hologram card of a puppy. When you move it, the puppy turns into a kitten. Still loves his animals!

My funny little Valentine!

Auntie Mal sent a great package of fun Valentine's Day STUFF! Shirts, a DVD, Love Machine Ducks, and of course CANDY! The boys both sported their new shirts on this day! Nolan's shirt was perfect for him because Auntie always buys him different Potato Heads and he LOVES them!

Heath in his cool dude shirt. This sweet tooth dug right into a Tootsie Roll!

I made them a special lunch...heart shaped peanut butter and jelly sandwiches!

After lunch we read some Valentine's Day books and made some Valentine Cupcakes.

The boys love to help me bake!

After naps we frosted them and they put candy hearts on top.

I chose to take a close up of this cupcake because of what the candy heart on top says. One of my favorite things Nolan does is this...he comes up to me and says, "Mommy, Guess What?" and then when I say "What?" he jumps up and says, "I love you!" with the biggest smile on his face! Sweetness!

We made strawberry cake and used vanilla frosting! Nolan's favs.

For dinner Mark made the boys heart shaped pancakes...a Valentine's Day tradition for us.

Then we settled in to watch 'The Lady and the Tramp' together as a family. This was Nolan's face when Lady and the Tramp ate the spaghetti and kissed! He thought it was so funny! We loved the movie!

After we put the boys to bed Mark had planned a special dinner for me!

He made "Sexy Surf and Turf", a Rachel Ray recipe. But things didn't exactly turn out as planned. We ended up having a smoke filled house and ate our food in the freezing cold because all of the windows were open in an attempt to clear out the smoke! Sounds romantic huh?! Ha! The chef felt really bad because the steak and scallops didn't quite turn out as expected. But the asparagus, pretzel rolls, and cheesecake were excellent! He kept saying, "At least I got 3 out of the 5!" Poor guy, I really did not care! I was just so happy that he had this secret plan for me and that we had a quiet dinner together...even if I could barely see him through the smoke! Ha!

And this was our table the next morning! To say we are loved would be an understatement! The boys got gift bags from Oma and Opa, cookies and treats from the Syers fam, and cards and money from Grandma and Grandpa. I love all the RED!

So of course this morning we had to hit up Target right away to spend Valentine money! Once again, look what Heathy chose! He had been eyeing this Buzz Lightyear stuffed guy every time we were in the store! And he finally got to buy it! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!

Once again we had a fabulous holiday with our family. We can not help but be overwhelmed by all of the blessings and love in our life. And we are humbled by the best gift of love that we receive:

"For God SO LOVED the world that He gave His only son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." John 3:16