A Valentine's Day Report

***You still have time to enter (or re-enter if I happened to erase your entry)my first ever giveaway! Right now, your odds are freakishly good so go here and comment!***

Now, onto Valentine's Day! We don't normally go overboard with the Day of Love around here. Usually we have a little surprise for the kiddos on the table in the morning and if I am feeling wild and crazy I'll put a little food coloring in the pancake batter and make heart shaped pancakes so I can hear phrases like, "ewwww, why is it that color?" "I like round pancakes better" or "Can't I have cereal this morning?"

Then Nana comes through with an elaborate bag of "treats" that totally put us to shame and provide the children enough sugar to fuel them to the moon and back.

This year, both Nana and us decided to scale back on the chocolatey goodness a bit!

Now, another little thing about me is that I HATE large crowds. They make me very nervous, which is why I start twitching if my Christmas shopping isn't done by Thanksgiving. Anyway, this phenomena rings true for entering into restaurants on V-Day as well. I just do not find it enjoyable to wait 2 extra hours with a million other people to eat in a crowded joint with stressed out, overworked waiters! So, this year I offered to make Valentine's dinner here at home and invite Nana and Papaw to eat with us. I told the kids they could choose any meal they wanted, they all just had to agree.

So, what would your kids choose? I thought spaghetti, maybe tacos, my kids even like Manwich...I was totally expecting some kid-friendly meal...they chose pork loin. Pork loin? What kid chooses pork loin? But that is what they asked for, so that is what they got and the adults got to enjoy it as well!

We had grilled pork loin, Caesar salad, green beans, roasted red potatoes with bacon and cheese and some home made biscuits (heart shaped, of course!). And might I say...it was WAY better than any meal we could have gotten out and there were NO CROWDS...well, except for mine, which is big but doesn't really count!

And, it is a really good thing we cut back. Because right now, in this house, 2 days after the big V, we have a batch of homemade fudge (heart shaped of course), a batch of heart shaped spritz cookies, a package of iced sugar cookies with valentine sprinkles, a giant Hershey bar with almonds, each child has their own, personal 5.3 oz pack of M&M's, a box of Lindor's Truffles, a giant Hershey kiss, the kids have heart shaped Reese's and the candy bucket is OVERFLOWING with sweet goodness! I hope we can find a little something for dessert today!

So, how was your Valentine's?

P.S. Guess what my Valentine gave me? A night in Nashville with NO KIDS! He is the BEST!!!