Day of Love!

Valentine's Day (A.K.A. "The Day of Love"...as I like to call it) was quite the celebration at the Pierce household.  Reid and I usually do something special to celebrate the holiday, but this year we wanted to make it special for Caeden too!  Of course I don't want him to grow up thinking this is the only day we show our love to others, but I definitely want it to be a special day where we do things that are out-of-the-ordinary for us...just to make it fun!

So yesterday, when Caeden and Ella woke up and made their way to their chairs for breakfast, they found some fun treats!

Caeden immediately wanted to sit down and was ready to play.

 And then ready to dig into the chocolate...He definitely takes after his mama!

And Ella did the same...

 

Finally it was time for breakfast, where I made them heart-shaped pancakes.  Reid was just thrilled to have a hot breakfast on a work day, and Caeden experienced syrup for the first time. :) Usually I don't give Caeden syrup with his pancakes, but yesterday, beacause it was special, he had syrup for the first time!  I put the syrup on the side in case he didn't like it.  I showed him how to dip the pancake and then eat it....but it definitely wasn't a question...He's a fan of syrup!

Once we were dressed for the day in our Valentine colors, we took some fun Valentine pictures. They were so great!

Then came our craft time!  The night before, I had glued four popsicle sticks together to make a square.  Yesterday, they then decorated them with foam heart-shaped stickers.  And finally, we turned them into a magnet picture frame with their picture.  They did so great with them!  And I totally let them do it all by themself....which meant upside down hearts and all.  But that's what made them cute!

Then came lunch....which meant a heart-shaped Grilled Cheese sandwich - of course!  AND I had made Reid's lunch earlier that day, with a heart-shaped sandwich for himself, some heart-shaped cookies I had baked the day before, and a Valentine. :)

And while Ella was still taking her nap (because she sleeps a lot longer than my son ;)), Caeden helped me wrap Daddy's present.  I seriously let him pull the tape off and put it on the present.  One time we ended up with a 14" piece of tape....that was fun pressing down! :) But he did a great job and we had fun wrapping together!  By the way, for his gift, Daddy got some stuff to start his garden.  While we were at the store, I showed Caeden three different types of seeds we could buy, and he picked out the package he wanted to give to Daddy!

For snack time, I made edible play-dough!  They played with it for awhile, using our heart cookie cutters, and then quickly discovered they could eat it.  Mommy had some too and it was delicious!  (For those of you who want to try this at home, it's equal parts of powdered milk, peanut butter, and honey.  And I added a little flour also).

 




















When Reid got home from work, we wanted to do a fun family game to end our "Day of Love!"  So we hid paper hearts around the house and let Caeden look for them.  As minor as it sounds, he loved it!  He was looking under the couch, under toys, under his chair, etc.  He totally got into it and was looking in even harder places than we actually hid them!  Here's a short video clip of our "heart hunt."

Now, after Caeden was in bed, Reid and I had planned to have a nice dinner at home while Caeden was sleeping.  We grilled out pork chops since the weather was nice, and had some other sides to go with them.  I volunteered to put Caeden to bed so Reid could start the grilling.  When I walked out of Caeden's room at 7:30, not only were the pork chops done, but Reid was standing in our kitchen all dressed up, with the table set (complete with tablecloths and cloth napkins) and served ME dinner!  How sweet is that!  Honestly, in my head while I was rocking Caeden, I was thinking "I hope he gets our dishes out so we can eat soon!"  HA!  Little did I know he was going to do all that!  So overall, I would say we had a GREAT Valentine's Day and truly conveyed to each other our love!