Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's festivities were kind of spread out this year, since the holiday fell on a Thursday (the day I go up to Salt Lake for TabChoir rehearsals).  Also, Ben was gone at the beginning of the week because his company was putting on a conference at Snowbird.  So we did our big family tradition on Sunday afternoon: fondue dinner (lunch) and dessert, followed by a dance party.  And this time we actually tried to do real dances: first we practiced the box step, then we did the Macarena, the Cha Cha Slide, and the Electric Slide.  It was so much fun - we really need to do more dancing in our family.

Once Ben left to drive up to Snowbird that afternoon, the kids and I got busy with Valentine's projects.  The younger ones wrote their names on their Valentines and made their boxes.  I particularly liked how Luke's box came together and his reference to this story by our favorite storyteller Bil Lepp (start at about 20:30 for the quote, but you'll have to listen to the whole thing to really understand it - but it's worth it).

The three older kids had Valentines. To be more specific, Cat and Jack had a Valentine each, and Eliza had three - which means she has had one more each year for three years.  I'm a bit nervous about her trajectory, but I don't know what to do about it.  Jack asked his friend Sydney to be his Valentine, back on December 6th.  When I asked him about this girl who was so special that he asked her two months in advance, he described her as blonde, with glasses and a jacket.  He wrote her a sweet note and they exchanged treats outside of the school that morning.  Cat made a fun candy-laden poster for her Valentine and received yummy treats in return.

 

Meanwhile, a girl in Luke's class made advances in the form of a purple heart and Post-It notes on his desk in the days leading up to Valentine's Day.  How did he feel about it?  He said it was "awkward" and "annoying."

The kids had been asking for our favorite sweet rolls from a bakery in Provo for a little while so Luke and I picked up a package the day before Valentine's Day so they'd be ready for breakfast.  And they even had pink frosting!

I spent most of the morning Luke was at school doing additional V-Day projects: getting the activities ready for the class parties and making heart-shaped pizza crust and heart-shaped cake for my family to enjoy that night while I was at choir.  (Turns out, neither was a hit.  Oh well.)

When I picked Luke up from school we went straight to Jack's class party, where I hosted a station to make an oversized Valentine for their teacher.  Luke had fun going to the different stations with Jack's group, and I snapped a picture of them singing the Pokemon theme song at the karaoke station.  Then Luke and I ran to the grocery store for a few supplies, went up to Ben's office to heart attack his car, then came back to help with Eliza's class party, making a second oversized Valentine for her teacher.

 All of that love was exhausting.  But I think everyone had a good day.