Galentine's Day

I hope you all had an excellent Valentines Day!  And I'm proud to say that I am in the middle of catching up on blog reading!  I haven't had much time to read blogs in the past 3-4 months, but I really feel like I'm missing out, so I'm going to try to make it more of a priority.  And commenting, too!  The interaction is one of the best parts of blogging, and I really miss it!

But on to Valentine's Day.  Luke actually left at 3:00 AM the morning of Valentine's Day to catch a flight to Houston.  And he didn't take me along.  He and a couple of guys from the worship band at church went to the Passion Conference.  To say I was a little annoyed about the timing would be an understatement.  But I decided that this would be a good experience for him, and decided to embrace the time alone with my girl.  Plus, Luke took me out to a Valentine's Day dinner at Bonefish Grill a week before the holiday, so I can't be too angry.  He also tried to surprise me with flowers, but they ended up being delivered while I was away for about 14 hours, and they froze outside.  Sad story.  Thanks a lot, Fed Ex.  But it's the thought that counts!

We did send Daddy off with some pretty cool Valentines, though.  I found these for Luke HERE at the Dating Divas blog.  He is a huge Star Wars fan, so I thought they were perfect.  And free!  I printed them on card stock, one from me and one from Scarlett.  Our printer ink was a little low, so they aren't perfect.  But cute anyway!  We also got him some chocolate, and a new fleece blanket.

The feet are supposed to be a heart.  Footprint projects are harder than they look, especially with a squirmy 7-month-old!

Luckily I ended up having fun plans for Valentines Day while Luke was out West, not freezing his butt off like me.  My mom, Scarlett, and I headed to Columbus for the day to visit my sister.

When I heard Scarlett stirring in her crib that morning, I greeted her with a new stuffed animal, just for Valentines Day.  As you can see in the picture below, she was clearly thrilled.

Her lack of enthusiasm was due to the fact that she was still tired.  That worked to our advantage on the 2.5 hour drive, because she slept most of the way there!

In Columbus we headed to Julie's house where my mom gave us all Valentine's Day presents.  Yes, she still does that.  And I will probably do that for Scarlett too when she's 29.  Then we went out to lunch at Cheesecake Factory, and spent the day shopping at Polaris, a big mall with lots of fun stores that we don't have near my house.  

 P.S. - I chopped all my hair off.

I ended up buying about 7462 things for Scarlett, because let's face it:  shopping for her is a lot more fun than shopping for me.  I did treat myself to this sweater from Loft, which just so happened to be 50% off.  It is so "me."  Pink and girly.

found HERE

To finish our day in Columbus, we visited my sister's new place of employment.  She is now a design consultant at a La-Z-Boy corporate store!  She sells their furniture by helping people pick out the style and prints they want, and she also goes on home consultations.  Scarlett was contemplating this remote-controlled recliner, but we told her she needs to get a job before she can purchase any expensive furniture! 

I think I could have stayed all weekend and continued to shop the entire time, but we headed home in the evening.  After stopping at Pizza Hut on the way home where Scarlett serenaded the entire restaurant and stared at a bunch of men sitting at the table beside us for about 20 minutes, we crashed for the night!  It was a pretty fun first Valentine's Day with my girl! And a fun Galentine's Day with all of us.

Oh!  And I got a head start on next year's Valentine's Day!  Pottery Barn Kids is probably my favorite store right now, but I don't have the money to buy a lot there.  (Who does? am I right?)  I have been loving their Valentine's Day plates and cups all season, and was hoping they'd be on sale.  They were!  So I bought Scarlett her own plate and cup for Valentine's Days to come.  I will probably try to scoop up as much of their adorable Peter Rabbit stuff as I can the day after Easter, too! 

 

Happy Valentines Day!

Luke and I both decided that we're pretending Valentines Day is this weekend, so let's act like the 14th hasn't already come and gone, mmkay? We are taking a break from school/work/renovations this weekend to celebrate by going out on a date.

However, this week has included a few romantic Valentiney things, so I thought I'd share.

#1 - Homemade ice cream! Okay, so I lied and this has nothing to do with Valentines Day. But we finally used Luke's ice cream maker he got for Christmas to make vanilla-Oreo ice cream for Bible study on Sunday night. It was SO GOOD.

#2. Mom, Julie, and I went on a little Galentines date (Parks and Rec reference...). I got a text while working on Monday asking if I'd like to go with my mom and sister to see The Vow. Umm, duh. It was an adorable movie, and not nearly as sad as I was expecting. Loved it! We had dinner at Panera afterwards, and then I gave them a tour of our renovations progress.

#3. We are super spoiled. Both of our moms gave us little Valentines Day treats this year! Once a mom, always a mom :-)

#4. Luke and I also gave each other Valentines Day gifts. I made him his favorite treat: pretzel-Rolo sandwiches. And he got me flowers and dark chocolate. Two of my favorite things!

#5. We ate brinner tonight. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach, right? In my husband's case, the way to his heart is through BACON. So I made brinner (breakfast-for-dinner) - French toast, scrambled eggs, and heart-shaped bacon! Thanks to Pinterest for the idea.

That's the extent of our Valentines Day festivities! Not including our big, romantic dinner-and-a-movie date coming up this weekend, of course. I hope everyone else had a great Valentines Day too, and that your schedules were less busy than mine!

All You Need is Love

I got my old dresser as a birthday gift, and it has quickly become one of my very favorite pieces in my house. It's right in the hallway where I see it every time I walk from one room to another. I've decided to try to change it each month! Or at least with the seasons. So yesterday I changed it for February, with an obvious love/Valentines Day theme.

Super simple, but I didn't want to overdo it with the Valentines Day thing. I like it better this way :-)

This month I just grabbed a few red and pink candles I had stored in a cupboard, put the Amaryllis I got from my grandparents for Christmas on a cute plate, hung up the "love" print that was in our bedroom, and printed that sweet "love chapter" printable. I think it's cute! I've been wanting to make some sort of heart garland too, like the heart one found here, but I'm trying to be honest with myself and I realize that the possibility of finding time to do that is probably nonexistent at this point. Oh well!

I found the plate a long time ago at Goodwill for $.50! I think it originally came in a gift pack from Bath and Body Works. I love thrifting :-)

I found this print a few years ago at Hobby Lobby.

And this FREE PRINTABLE I found on Pinterest (where else?) is my favorite part.

I'm happy with the results of my update, and it literally took five minutes.

I love celebrating each season and the fun things that each month brings. I've really enjoyed making this focal point of our home reflect that!

Looking back...

Here it was in January with the snow theme:

And December, all decorated for Christmas:

(The drawers are almost never pushed in right. I try not to be too OCD about it :-P)

Do you decorate for Valentines Day?

Date Night 10: Valentines Date Night

Luke and I had our Valentines date last night. The past two years I've cooked a big dinner for Valentines Day. This year we decided to go out to dinner instead, and I can't even begin to tell you how much I preferred that! I love making big meals for Luke because I feel like that's one way to show him that I love him, but at the same time, it is a little stressful and takes a lot of time. Last night since we went out, we could both just relax and enjoy our evening together!

First we went out to eat at Grinders. We got there somewhat early, and got a table right away! I was a little nervous because I thought the crowds might be bad, but they weren't at all! I ordered a chicken fajita wrap with fries, and Luke ordered his usual potato skins. We had a nice time talking and enjoying our food.

After dinner, we went to the movie theater. We couldn't remember whose turn it was to pick the date because we had gone out a few times the week before and we weren't sure if we were technically calling those "date nights" or not. Haha! So I let Luke pick the movie. He picked Sanctum

This was not the most romantic date movie. It was about a bunch of people who get stuck in a cave and can't find their way out. It's not really scary, but it's very suspenseful. I have nightmares all the time about water: that I get stuck out in the water and can't find the shore or that I go underwater and get all turned around and can't find the surface (I wonder what that means, by the way!) So [slight spoiler alert] I basically almost had a panic attack during some of the scenes where people got caught underwater and couldn't find a way out. Not exactly romantic :-P But I guess it was a good movie anyway, even though I didn't particularly enjoy the subject matter!

When we got home, we exchanged Valentines gifts. I had gotten Luke a blu ray and chocolate-covered pretzels, and he got me lots of chocolate. This is our seventh Valentines Day together, and I guess in all those years, Luke has figured out that he can't go wrong with chocolate!! Especially dark chocolate and Reeses :-)

After that, we fell asleep on the couch at around 10, I think. We are turning into such old people!! Haha

Anyway, I love Valentines Day, and I'm so happy to get to spend another one with Luke. I sure do love him!

Our Valentines Day

Our Valentines Day was...okay. I'm just being real here. It started out really nice! We went to church, and then Hot Dog Shoppe of course :-P Here we are at lunch there (JC was there too!) like every week.
We exchanged gifts. I got him a couple blu-rays and he got me the "Marley and Me" blu-ray and a lot of candy, which I loved!

Then Luke had band practice and I spent pretty much the entire day preparing for and cooking our meal: salad, chicken Parmesan, and garlic mashed potatoes. It was a really crazy meal to prepare and I completely demolished my clean kitchen, but I think it was worth it! It was really good, although my potatoes were lumpy. But it was my first time making them, so I guess that's to be expected. We ate dinner at our new dining room table!

And I had fun decorating the table with red buckets filled with pink beads and candles, my pink strawberry candle, and pink and red candy.

After dinner is where things started going downhill. The plan was to watch the All-Star game, and then a movie while we ate our fondue. Well that didn't quite work out. First of all, the game was on until almost midnight. so obviously for us old people, that was too late to watch a movie :-P And by this time, I was pretty sick of basketball, and getting pretty grumpy. Also, we were still pretty full from our dinner, and after I spent a ton of time setting up the fondue upstairs, we barely ate any. And I have tons of food left over. And it just made me more grumpy. It looked nice, though :-PBTW, I highly recommend strawberry marshmallows. They were delish!

So our day started out nice. But basketball and my bad attitude made the day kind of end on a bad note.

Luckily we are going out to a nice dinner tonight at Carrabbas because we have a gift card for there. So we can make up for last night :-) That is, as long as the weather doesn't get too bad. We're supposed to get another snowstorm, so I may be having my seventh straight day off from work tomorrow. Sigh...I almost want to go back. ALMOST.

I hope you all had great Valentines Days!! :-)

A Sweet Day

I left the house for the first time since Tuesday today to go shopping! The snow has finally stopped, and the roads were clear. It felt so good just to get out for a bit!

While I was out, I bought everything I need for our Valentines Day dinner on Sunday night. I realized a lot of what I was buying was chocolatey or sweet. I bought chocolate for the fondue, plus strawberry marshmallows, strawberries, angel food cake and pretzels (although pretzels aren't sweet :-P) to dip in it, plus I bought more chocolate and Oreos for the Oreo truffles I made this afternoon. I was kind of embarrassed at the check out counter with all those sweets! Oh well, it's Valentines Day...I'm sure lots of people were buying that kind of thing today :-)

So like I said, I decided to make oreo truffles today!

I'm not sure what possessed me to do it, but they just sounded good! I decided to just make them because Luke LOVES Oreos. And it's always nice to have something to offer to people if they come over. Anyway, they turned out to be REALLY good. I hope Luke likes them! Here is the recipe if you want to make them...they were so easy to make!
While I was making them, I used my food processor to chop up the Oreos. I don't use it very often, so I guess Ellie had never heard it before. When I turned it on, she looked at me with the biggest eyes, completely stunned. then she ran away. When I was all done making them, I realized I hadn't seen her in awhile. I didn't think much of it, and just went about what I was doing. But after awhile, I realized it had been about two hours since I had seen her. I went around the house looking for her. Gabby was following me and looking too! I kept saying, "Where's Ellie?!" And Gabby would run around and cry because she couldn't find her sister :-P (Yes, I talk to my cats occasionally). It was so cute!

We finally found her up in the attic, hiding in the furthest corner underneath the couch. It was so cute!I kept peeking under every few minutes and tried to calm her down. Finally after about another 20 minutes, she carefully came out. It was so funny! So I guess Ellie is afraid of the food processor. That's better than Gabby...she's scared of my violin. As soon as I open the case, she runs to the bedroom to hide under the bed :-P

Now I think I'm totally ready for Sunday, aside from actually making our dinner :-) I think it will be a fun night, and I'm excited!

Fondue and Romance

I have another snow day today! And we already have Friday and Monday off because of conferences and President's Day, so I consequently have a six-day weekend! Yay! I thought today would be a good time to get my Valentines Day plans in order since I have so much free time (and because cabin fever is setting in and I need to keep myself busy!)

First of all I thought about making a whole, romantic fondue dinner like you'd eat at The Melting Pot. Mostly because I was so excited when I received my fondue set at my shower, but have never actually used it yet! And it's about time! Buuuut, I think trying to cook a whole fundue dinner might be biting off a little more than I can chew. And although it is one of my 101 items on my goal list, I think I'll wait a little longer before I try to tackle it. Plus, I think it would be really expensive to buy everything I'd need for just the two of us. So I thought I'd just make chocolate fondue for my first fondue experience. That should be easy enough! And delicious ;-) I thought about making Valentines cutout cookies since cutouts are sort of my "thing" I guess. But it just sounded like so much work, and I'm still a little burnt out from all the cookies I made at Christmastime. So I thought the chocolate fondue would be enough sweetness and we wouldn't need any cookies! Was that paragraph ADD enough for you?? :-P

So anyway, what is our Valentines Day going to look like? We are going to church, probably followed by a trip to The Hot Dog Shoppe with JC because that is our weekly tradition ;-) Then later for dinner I will make (or attempt to make) some sort of salad, followed by chicken parm., homemade garlic mashed pototatoes, and green beans. We'll eat that at the table (hoping to have our new dining room set up by then, but if not we'll have to eat at our old table in the hallway :-P) Then maybe we'll play a game or two if I can twist Luke's arm. We have had Scrabble for over a year and it's still in the shrink wrap. And then I'm thinking we'll eat our chocolate fondue with strawberries, angel food cake, pretzels, etc while we watch a movie?? Not sure about that yet. I was thinking I could spread a sheet or table cloth on the floor in the attic so we don't mess up the new carpet! And maybe set up a little table there so we can enjoy our fondue and some sparkling grapejuice while we watch...we'll see. I haven't quite figured that part out yet. But I think it will be a fun, romantic evening!

I was going to surprise Luke with tickets to go see Jim Gaffigan, our favorite comedian, in Columbus on the 27th and that would be my Valentines Day gift to him. But they were just about sold out! I could only find single tickets available. So I guess maybe that will have to wait, but I really want to see him live sometime!! I guess he will have to settle with a card and some chocolate or a blu-ray this year. I have to confess, I'm not the best gift-picker-outer in the world :-P

So how are you celebrating Valentines Day?? Are you staying in, or are you going out to brave the crowds? Does anybody have any really creative ideas for V-Day? I would love to hear all about them! :-)

V-Day Love

I knew as soon as January was over, my life would get a little more exciting again :-) So far in February we've gotten new carpet and redecorated our attic/living room, we've gotten the biggest snowstorm I can remember in a long time, and have consequently had a FUN Saturday sled-riding for the first time in years, had Netflix movie marathons, and I've had a snow day! On top of that, we had a fun party on Saturday. And coming up, we have one of my FAVORITE holidays: Valentines Day!

This week I decided I'd post a lot about V-Day. Because I love it so much :-) Today I thought I'd write about my love for Valentines Day, even back when I was single :-)

Honestly, sometimes I really miss high school me. I was so innocent and even naive and had not a care in the world. I rarely had boyfriends in high school, but had a GREAT group of friends, a wonderful family, and a fun youth group that I was really close to (which Luke just happened to be part of! If only I knew then what I knew now ;-)). I really had nothing to worry about back then besides my grades. I would spend my weekends going to the movies with my friends, or having girl's nights with them where we would stay up way too late talking and giggling. Oh, and I could eat 4,000 calories a day and not gain an ounce. That was nice too ;-) But that's besides the point...

I think my best high school year was my junior year. I was seventeen, young enough to still be under my parents protection yet old enough to start feeling a little freedom. I was a hopeless romantic. I was completely single, but knew that God would write my love story. I knew that my prince charming would sweep my off my feet someday, and all I had to do was sit around and wait for him :-) I just couldn't wait until it happened, but I was okay with the fact that it hadn't yet. Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing. I'm glad I was able to hold onto my innocence and be okay just being me. Most of my friends had lots of boyfriends, but I can look back and be glad that I didn't.

So anyway, it was Valentines Day 2002. Seventeen year old me woke up and got ready for school. I'm sure I was wearing a pink sweater. I only wore one color back then ;-) I remember walking downstairs and finding the packages on the kitchen counter: one for me, and one for my sister. Yes, my parents gave us V-Day presents every year growing up, even when we were older. Come to think of it, my mom still gave me one last year! When I was married! lol...anyway...

I opened my package. Inside was chocolate, of course, and a book :

I had seen the movie when it had come out a few weeks before, and it was easily my new favorite. I was so excited when I opened the book, I wanted to skip school and just stay home and read it!

I went through my school day, probably only receiving a few Valentines Day Carnations from my friends (I always hated this V-Day tradition in high school btw! Way to make the single girls feel bad!)

When I got home, I closed myself in my bedroom and devoured my new book. I read it all that evening. I cried, and I just knew that real love would be like the love that Jamie and Landon had for each other. Then I ate some chocolate, took a relaxing bubble bath, and watched a chick flick or two. I let my imagination run wild about when I would finally fall in love and have a boy that would do anything for me like Landon would do anything for Jamie. Oh my goodness, the part in the movie when Landon helps Jamie accomplish some of the goals in her life list STILL makes my heart skip a beat. After approximately 3,782 viewings :-P When he puts the butterfly tattoo on her shoulder, and then takes her to the state line so she can "be in two places at once." Ahh, it still gets to me! My absolute favorite part is when they are in the play together, Jamie sings her song looking absolutely beautiful, and then they spontaneously kiss while the curtain closes. Be still my teenage heart!

So anyway, all that to say I love Valentines Day. I've always loved it. For me it was an excuse to be girly and to celebrate the day that I would finally find my "Landon." Well guess what! I found him! A mere two-and-a-half years after that special, single Valentines Day :-)

This Saturday, Luke is having a bunch of guys over to play video games and do other guy things (I'm so glad I'm a girl!! :-P) And I think I decided I'm going to read and watch "A Walk to Remember." to get me in the romantic mood for Valentines Day on Sunday. I have some fun things planned (as long as I can get to town sometime in the next few days in this horrible weather!) But I'll write about those later. Enjoy this week! And even if you're single, celebrate your single-dom, and the fact that God is writing your love story, right now!

Beautiful in God's Eyes

Saturday evening (Valentines Day) ended up being great! My chicken stir fry turned out to be pretty tasty. I was breathing a sigh of relief that evening that I didn't ruin the meal somehow. I have a tendency to do that sometimes :-)

This is one of my favorite meals (It's Luke's all-time favorite). I LOVE all the onions and peppers and vegetables in it. They filled the whole house with their savory scent for the entire evening. I loved it :-)
I even set the table, complete with my nice Mikasa dishes. You know it's a nice dinner when I break those out instead of our Target everyday dishes ;-)
Yum

Then we exchanged gifts. This is what Luke got for me:

Does he know me or what?! He told me he was going to buy me flowers, but didn't want to buy them a day early and have them not be fresh on Saturday. I said, "It's okay, Luke. You know chocolate always trumps flowers in my book!" And it does. I would much rather receive chocolate than flowers any day :-)

We had fun going to see a movie, and then when we came home, we watched Scrubs re-runs. I know, romantic, right? Well, to us it is! haha

Yesterday was a great day. After church, dinner at the in-laws, and our FPU class, I received a big blessing! We were still at church after FPU, and Luke went upstairs where the youth group kids were hanging out. He needed to talk to the youth leader who is one of our good friends. Luke ended up getting sucked in by a game of hockey the kids were playing, and he decided to join in. I keep saying that he's 15 at heart :-P While he continued to play for the next hour, I had the opportunity to chat with Michelle, the youth leader's wife.

Michelle is an amazing woman. She's 26 years old, and already knows exactly what she wants in life. She doesn't wear make-up, doesn't get caught up in wearing the right clothes, and just isn't materialistic at all. She and her husband just paid cash for their first house a few months ago. It was a little $7,000 house that was obviously falling apart at the seams. She and her husband are living in an apartment while they completely gut the house and make it their own. They're paying for everything as they go, and making it a long-term project. I just think that's awesome. When they're done, they will have a house without a mortgage while they are still in their 20s! They are just smart people. They eat only healthy foods and they go to the gym 5 days a week because they truly believe that their bodies are God's temple and it's their responsibility to take care of them. Michelle has her teaching license, but has decided to devote her time to the youth at our church instead of teaching full-time. She and her husband are waiting to have kids, because they eventually want to do a lot of missions work. Now is that a Godly woman or what?!

Anyway, I was excited to have the chance to talk to her a lot last night. We talked about lots of things, but somehow got on the topic of my one-year-anniversary trip. I told her that we want to go somewhere, but didn't want to spend a lot of money now that Dave Ramsey has made us feel guilty about spending :-P She suggested that we go backpacking! She and Alex (her husband) have gone a few times, and they love it. It gives them a chance to just be alone in nature, and it's totally romantic. And the best part? You only have to pay for food and gas to get to wherever you're going.

I'm not typically a very out-doorsy girl. But this gave me something to think about! How romantic would it be to just explore nature, just the two of us? We could sleep out under the stars if we want, cook all of our meals over a fire, swim in a lake, just talk for hours with no distractions. The drawbacks, of course, would be the bugs, no running water, and no toilets! I'm not sure that I'm quite ready for something THAT rugged, but we could just go camping somewhere like Kelley's Island, or anywhere else with a big lake. It would be cheap. And for our first trip together (besides the honeymoon), we might go with something cheap. Someday when we've saved up a lot of money we'll go to the Bahamas or on a cruise. But for now, we're trying to save money like crazy, so a nature-filled camping trip might be the way to go. I mean, if you ask me, romance is what you make it. We could still have a great time! And we haven't gotten the chance to use our tent that my parents got us as a wedding gift. This would be the perfect opportunity!

Anyway, Michelle gave me a lot to think about. She is a woman who is truly beautiful in God's eyes (that's also the title of a book I'm reading in Sunday School, and it is what I truly want from life - to be beautiful in God's eyes). I look up to her a lot, and hope to be a little more like her someday!

I will leave you with a few pictures another friend of mine took while backpacking in Colorado. Tell me these aren't just breathtakingly beautiful and romantic!:

I'm Spoiled

I hope your Valentines Day is going great! Even when I was single, I was never one of those people who hated Valentines Day. I used it as an excuse to watch chick flicks, read romantic books, pamper myself, and indulge in lots, and lots of chocolate and ice cream! So even if you don't have a significant other to share today with, I hope you can find some fun ways to enjoy the holiday :-)

Luke and I had a Valentines Day surprise last night. Our neighbors, Rachel and Jared, are also our best friends! Rachel has been my best friend since we were in diapers - she is my cousin. And although we are polar opposites, we've always been very close. And Luke actually roomed with her husband, Jared for a year while they were both still bachelors. It was just a total coincidence and blessing that we happened to move in almost right next to them! Anyway, last night they stopped by to deliver us a little Valentines Day treat:
Aren't they adorable? Rachel is a regular Martha Stewart, and has been as long as I can remember. I love how they even included our initials :-) I was glad I had baked chocolate cupcakes earlier yesterday so I had something to give them in return!

Then Luke and I found out that we're famous. Not really, but a few days ago I wrote about how a lady from our church went on Dr. Phil to get a makeover. She works at the Damascus Fire Department, which just happens to be right beside our house. The show got a few shots of the fire department, and for about half a second, our house was in the background! So if you watched Dr. Phil yesterday (Friday) you saw our house. I know it's not a big deal, but we were excited anyway! haha

Later, Luke played basketball with some of his friends while I worked on our "Dating years" scrapbook. I only wanted to work on a few pages, but I got carried away and filled up all but 3 pages in the album! Here are a couple pages, just for fun:I know the glare makes it hard to see, but I like the Hershey's Kiss labels that frame the picture. I saved them a long time ago when I made cookies with Hershey's Kisses, because I knew I could use them somewhere!

Then this morning, Luke decided to surprise me by making breakfast! This is the first time he's done that since our honeymoon in July, so I thought it was pretty sweet :-)

He made a pretty big mess of the kitchen, but I think I'll keep him anyway ;-)

Yum...homemade waffles and bacon. He did pretty well!
(the bacon wasn't black, I just edited the photo and that's how the bacon turned out afterwards :-P)

I went to my parents' for a few minutes to exchange V-Day gifts with them. My mom really spoiled us!

She got us a basket full of goodies, and Mikasa serving dish from the Italian Countryside collection! I've been slowly building my Mikasa collection ever since my bridal shower. Can you believe she found this at Marcs for a few bucks?! I was shocked...at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, they go for $45 each. I was so excited!Here's a close up of her basket. It contained chocolate-covered pretzels, Sweethearts candies, lots of Hershey's Kisses, some adorable candles, and my favorite Mary-Kay lip gloss.
Had to get a close up of the "Cafe Candles." I'm going to display them in the kitchen somewhere, because I think they are just too cute!

My mom is adorable...she loves buying gifts and making them look pretty. That's why she still buys us all Valentines Day presents every year. For my little sister, she bought a plaque that says "Who cares about love? I'd rather fall in chocolate!" I thought it was cute :-)

I'm excited about date night tonight! This post is simply to kill time, because I'm excited! I'm making Luke his favorite dinner tonight: chicken stir-fry. I'm lucky his favorite meal is such an easy one to make! Then we're going to see "He's Just Not That Into You" at the movie theater. I'm pretty excited!

Tomorrow We STILL won't be finished celebrating Valentines Day. Luke's parents have invited us over tomorrow afternoon for a Valentines Day dinner of burgers, and then homemade cake followed by homemade ice cream! Again, we are so spoiled by both sets of parents! After that we have our Financial Peace University class at church. We're ending the day by going to see "Friday the 13th" with some of our friends, because clearly, we will need something like that after all this mushy, romantic stuff :-P

Luke and I both have off work Monday! Yay for me working in a school system and Luke working for the city! We're going to Bob Evans for breakfast. My mouth is already watering!

It's going to suck going back to work on Tuesday, but until then, I'm going to enjoy every minute of this long weekend! :-D

Have a WONDERFUL Valentines Day!!