Day 28: Family Valentine's Dinner

Last year, we started the tradition of having a family Valentine's Day dinner at home with our kids on Valentine's Day.  We never enjoyed going out because every place is so crowded and would much rather enjoy a date when everyone and their wife, girlfriend, or grandmother was out.  Also, this tradition is so fun!  Our kids have a blast and so do we.  It is a lot of preparation, but is so much better than going out!

I applied many pins this year.  The nice thing about Pinterest is there are people who pay close attention to detail.  Printable, free Valentines are available through Pinterest that can make those special details, like having homemade Valentines with your children's' favorite characters on them, so much easier to find and use!  (Click here for a bunch of free Valentine's Day Printables!)

For this card, I found the free chevron stripe printable HERE and the date to date calculator for date HERE.  The fact that you could have that calculated in seconds is amazing!

An idea I came across on Pinterest was to have heart themed pizzas.  How fun is that?  And how perfect for the kids!  I purchase the Bob's Red Mill gluten free pizza crust at Big Lots for a decent price.  The bag says to divide the batch into two balls, but I decided them into several balls, just big enough to roll out into a six inch circle so I could use a large cookie cutter to shape the dough.  Instead of baking the dough with the toppings on it for 15-18 minutes, as directed on the package, I baked it for 10.  The pizzas were smaller, so that was perfect.

To make the pepperoni (which is nitrate-free from Fresh & Easy) heart-shaped, fold the pepperoni in half, just like you would to make a paper heart, and cut out half of a heart from fold.  Unfold and you have a heart and a pepperoni with a heart-shaped hole.  Cute, huh?

Next, to make the salad special, I made the carrots heart shaped.  When I saw this on Pinterest, I HAD to do it  The hardest part was cutting the slit in the middle of the carrot.  After that, I just peeled the carrot to shape it.  Overall, it was pretty easy and added such a great detail!  Madelyn loved eating the carrot hearts!

And, of course, we ate by candlelight.  :)

After dinner, we played a few rounds of balloon volleyball, Valentine's Day Edition (the red balloon!).  Jackson said he wanted to play this every night.  I have to admit, it was so much fun!  (Again, this idea was from Pinterest.)

To set this balloon volleyball up, fold a twin sized sheet in half lengthwise, drape over  two chairs so it forms the "net."  Then tie the ends of the sheet to the leg of the each chair.  Be sure to blow up the balloon to a somewhat small size, so it is less likely to pop.

After volleyball, we finished the night off with brownies!

A bonus I didn't expect...my hubby gifted me Elyse Fitzpatrick's new devotion, a much needed and very pretty apron, and Thin Mints.  Yea!!!  

Pinterest was a nice addition to our family Valentine's Day tradition.  I'm happy I added those little details, and enjoyed the fact that the kids liked them too!

Day 9: At Home Paris Date Night

I love my husband.  I love dating him.  With three kids, sometimes it's hard to get out of the house on an official "date."  This is why I love the idea of at-home date nights.  Don't get me wrong, I like to be taken out on the town, just like any other girl, but this is a nice alternative if babysitting is lacking or it's raining and you just feel like being cozy with your hubby.

Troy's birthday gift:  A year of dates!

In August, my husband turned 40.  I wanted to do something unique and special for his birthday.  With the help of Pinterest, I came across the idea of giving him a year of dates.  The blogger (Find Joy in the Journey) who first posted about this did one date night a month.  I decided to do two---one at-home and one away from home date each month.  It was a lot of work to pre-plan and pull this together, but it was so much fun.  And, here we are, months later, still having fun with this gift!

Our candlelit dinner.

An extra dinner guest showed up.

January's at-home date night was Paris Movie Night.  The "date" really started with the kids awake.  I put my PJs on and when Troy came home from work I handed him his PJs to get comfortable.  I then took him into the kitchen and treated him to a candlelit dinner of tomato soup and cheese and bell pepper paninis while the kids watched Curious George in the living room.  Of course, we had Owen visiting us throughout dinner, but it still was romantic.  We then had a "PJ dance party" with the kids so we could wear them out and send them to bed.  Oh, yes, I had fun at the dance party, but it served many purposes!  We sent them to bed and the "date night" continued!   I made chocolate fondue and we watched Charade, which is one of my favorite movies that takes place in Paris.  We had so much fun and the fondue was a very special treat!  We went somewhat healthy with what we dipped---strawberries, marshmallows (only 2!), graham crackers (only 2---and natural ones at that!), and some clean eating cookie dough bites, which will be tomorrow's post.  We drank orange flavored mineral water out of a wine class, lit candles, and sat fireside to enjoy our fondue.  As I said, SO MUCH FUN!

Dance party---wearing the kids (and the parents) out!

The Paris-themed movie

Fireside Fondue

Us!

I have really enjoyed dating my husband.  All the ideas on Pinterest are a great help to get creative and cheap ideas!  Please visit my "30 Days of Pinterest" board to see all the ideas!