Valentine's Day 2012

We had a wonderful Valentine's Day here at the Tolbert house! Since Anna Kate is now at an age where she can appreciate holidays and doing special things, I had fun coming up with a few special treats and activities for the day! First though, I can't thank Anna Kate and Caroline enough for their Valentine's present for me: sleeping until 8:30 and 9am, respectively! Well, I mean, Caroline woke up ever hour or two all night long, but then slept from 6:30-9. So that's sort of sleeping in. But that's beside the point. In any case, we started our day a little later with a fun heart-shaped breakfast of apples and banana bread!

Anna Kate approved.


Then we had Bible time where we talked about how God showed his love for us by sending his son Jesus to die for our sins. We really enjoy the "100 ways to know God loves me" devotional for children! We also worked on our BIG valentine card for Daddy!


Here is a close-up of the letter Anna Kate "wrote". We did it mad lib style where I would start the sentence and she would finish it. The pink words are all her own!

(Note: boo boons are balloons...oh, and Luke wants everyone to know that he has never worn a dress...)

After that we did some coloring of a cute little Valentine Bear...until AK started eating the crayons. Not sure why we are back at the put everything in our mouth stage...


Since it was now after 10am, we decided getting dressed might be in order. So we all wore pink and hearts!

Sister love

I have been trying to do different things for Anna Kate's lunch lately so that it's not just a 2-day rotation of peanut butter and grilled cheese. I saw this great idea for doing mini servings of various foods in a 6-cup muffin pan. She LOVES it! So today, I pulled out my heart-shaped muffin tin for her little lunch buffet!

We spent the afternoon napping and running out to the store for Mommy to get a card for Daddy and the ingredients to make a special dessert. I know, I know, nothing like last minute shopping. Anyway, when we got home it was time to make dinner: heart-shaped taco pockets! Here they are before the tops went on.

And this is all that was left after dinner!

After dinner we had some more playtime before getting in our jammies and going to bed. We chose jammies with hearts on them, of course!


Now, I would like to say that both girls went to bed perfectly and we didn't hear from them the rest of the evening. That is actually true for Anna Kate. Caroline on the other hand is going through the "Four-month Sleep Regression." It kinda makes me feel better that there is an actual term for it. Basically she wakes up every 45 minutes. Nice. Anyway, in between wake-ups, Luke and I made and enjoyed this:

A Red Velvet cheese ball. And yes, it is every bit as good as it looks.

And we had to take a picture of ourselves on Valentine's Day.

So there you have it. No going out this year, no candles or steaks, or super fancy dinner, but it was wonderful. Our little family and LOTS of love to go around!