Dear Sandi...

Sydney opening up her Valentines in her mailbox.

Sandi, I read your blog yesterday where you wondered if your Valentine's Days will change when you become married. Well, truthfully they will always be what you & Curt choose them to be.

If you are anything like me, once you have kids you will be planning the day as much for them (maybe more) as you are for your husband. If you read Carrie's entry, you probably saw that the same applied to her "plans".

Taylor Valentine's Recap

Brad & I have not bought gifts for Valentine's Day for a few years. Really, what do we need on Valentine's Day that we shouldn't be getting any day of the year to show how much we love each other? We do however make a point of going out for dinner- but not on Valentine's Day. On this particular holiday the restaurants are too busy & often have a "special" menu that you can't order whatever you want anyway. Now that we have kids, this also creates another hiccup in going out. Who do you get to watch the kids on a "school night"?

Romantic dinner set for three.

So, in planning for Valentine's Day I figured we would have a special meal at home. Since we are going out on the weekend, I wanted the meal to be something special for Sydney too. Rather than waiting until the kids went to bed to have a nice meal together, I opted to plan on us all eating together. I figure for as long as the kids will permit it & not think it is too corny, we will have a dinner lit by candlelight. We all really like crab legs, so for the occasion I figured this is what we would have. I should have remembered that I am usually eating dinner with Jason on my lap since he is often very tired at this point in the day & never lasts through our meal on his own. Since crab legs cannot be eaten with one hand, it was not a very relaxing dinner.

When scooping with your finger is too slow, stick your whole head in the bowl.

For dessert, a heart-shaped chocolate brownie with ice cream was on the menu. When Sydney got up from her nap she helped me make it. As you can see, she was very interested in taste testing the product before it went in the oven. Since the pan would fit I thought I would bake it in the toaster oven & then I didn't need to worry about Sydney getting to close to the hot oven. Unfortunately I learned that the toaster oven is not the best place to bake something & our heart broke coming out of the pan.

Broken heart on Valentine's Day

Brad & I did wait until the kids were in bed to exchange our cards & have our dessert. We did need to have some time alone to celebrate the "romantic" holiday. However, to top off the evening, I went to bed early because the wine we drank at dinner gave me a headache. Poor Brad.

I tried to get a nice picture of Sydney & Jason. Jason was cooperating with a smile, but Sydney was too tuned into DORA. It was a longer episode about Friendship bracelets. I am assuming it was because of Valentine's Day.