We love to party!

We are not big partiers, in the sense of going out and getting falling-down drunk and doing crazy stunts with friends. Okay, or at all, but oh do our kids love to have a party!  There is actually a running joke at school about Emma's parties already. She invites all the teachers to her house for her big party after school on at least a weekly basis(meanwhile there is absolutely no party happening).

Valentines Day seemed like as good an excuse as any to have a little bash. My sister in law had a cousin of hers and my hubby's visiting from Vancouver so it was nice to get everyone in the immediate family together and V-day provided the perfect excuse!

Since I had to work all day Thursday Moose and I did a lot of the prepping on Wednesday. M&M put her decorating skills to good use when she got home from school. We (the executive here the kitchen is namely me, but we sounds more democratic) decided on pizza, salad, and fruity red drinks followed by chocolate covered pretzel sticks and chocolate sugar cookies.
Of course we had to dress it up a little by making all things hearts: heart pepperonis, XO bacon, the kids had individual heart pizzas, heart cookies, and lots of heart shaped sprinkles.
Plus it's always a fun excuse for presents so I picked a few treats up when I was in Sudbury, plus threw in some books I had ordered from Scholastic.

Fruity Red Drinks via Rebekah's Pinterest via Delightfully Tacky
Chocolate Sugar Cookies (and tons of other fun V-day foods) via Rebekah's Pinterest via Workman Family

We (okay that's me again) also had fun with a project for the kiddos to give daddy as a present: a rack for his ties that has the saying "Daddy's love ties us together." I originally saw the sign on Etsy (that link has since disappeared) via Pinterest but wasn't willing to fork out the cash to purchase it. I found the back board at Michaels for 12$. Got sucked into buying some letters that I only used for the word ties, (but there is lots leftover) at 8$, and found the knobs at Walmart for about 10$. I had the craft paint on hand.
I really debated on whether to use paint or stain, but sealed the deal when I couldn't find the stain I'd used on the shelf in Moose an M&M's room anywhere. First step was to get the knobs onto the board.  I used eight of the ten knobs set at equal distances apart.  This would be super easy if we owned a nice hand drill for finicky work, but ours is a big monstrosity that refused to work at speeds under mach 1.  The second problem was that the screws that came with the knobs had flat ends.

  I solved both problems by grabbing a deck screw and screwdriver and "pre-drilling" with the deck screw. The hole still wasn't always quite big enough to get the cabinet screw with the flat end started, but the screwdriver was an easy tool to ream the hole out enough larger. I was really proud of myself for how well this turned out!

Next I decided to paint the edges brown so it would give the board an old fashioned whitewash look when covered in just enough cream paint that some of the brown still pops through. Lastly I arranged letters several ways and found that I could only use my purchased letters for ties.  The rest I stencilled. I had even more trouble painting this with my stencils than the last project of our family dates, maybe they are getting too worn being only cheap plastic scrapbook ones.  Anyways eventually got them all somewhat perfected and then outlined them in gold with a metallic marker.

Okay I'm actually inordinately proud of this project! And I have to say I love Etsy (Pinterest too) for design inspiration!!

Our only other projects were a couple of quick ones for Valentines Day at school.  For Emma's classroom, as Valentine's, we put together an idea from pinterest.  I found these cute candy bags with hearts on them at Walmart as well as loopy straws with hearts as the loops.  The "card" on top said: "Valentine, you make me loopy."  Cute and much better than more candy or a card that parents want to throw in the garbage as soon as it comes in the door (because they end up scattered all over the house) and only slightly more time consuming than addressing 20 cards.

Loopy Straw's via Rebekah's Pinterest

For the teachers (didn't think they'd want a loopy straw!) we made fruit explosion muffins in heart shaped tins.  Luckily M&M's party was the day after V-day so I snuck in some baking the next morning.  The muffin recipe came from Pinterest.  I basically used the Sparkling Jumbo Muffins and added some bananas (mashed 'em and added at the same time as the milk and eggs) and strawberries.  Unfortunately I didn't have any of the sugar crystal so mine are not nearly as pretty as hers, but super puffy and delicious!

Muffins via Rebekah's Pinterest via Sally's Baking Addiction

Plus I got my favourites: yellow roses am blue hydrangeas! Aren't the beautiful. I think they might be inspiration for my garden planning in a few months! Well be starting from scratch so I'm a little overwhelmed with where to even start.  And my kiddies:  Aren't they the sweetest Valentines ever?