Valentine's Day

Jace woke up Valentine's morning with a pretty bad cold.  I think he had a little cold starting over the weekend and then being down at the ocean with the wind blowing only aggrivated it.  His nose has been running like a faucet non-stop... think "11's" constantly ever since.  Since he was sick he didn't help out during the cookie baking that I did for valentine's day.  I made a few heart shaped cookies for Tate and Jace to have with their lunch.  I love to keep ready-to-go sugar cookie dough in the freezer so I can just pop a little out whenever there's a cookie emergency... which is pretty much every week.

I made both of my Valentine's their favorite lunches.  Tacos with beans and rice for Tate, and noodles, grapes and a heart-shaped jelly sandwich for Jace.  While Tate worked, Jace and I spent the day playing around the house.  Since he was sick I decided not to take him to storytime and spread germs.  That afternoon our house took a serious beating... Jace's "booga-nose" attacked everything in it's path!  There was snot wiped on the curtains, on the pillows, all over my pants, on hand towels... and he soaked three shirts full of snot through out the day.  Oh, joy!  I mostly just felt bad for him though because he's never had a runny nose that badly before and he HATES having his face wiped off... especially every two minutes.

Mmm... cookie!

Sharing his cookie with his valentine: elmo!

Little heart shaped sammy for my little Valentine :)

MMMM...

Cheese!

Being silly for the camera despite his cold.  <3

For dinner we decided to make some thick pepper steaks.  We considered grilling but it didn't sound fun in the dark so I decided to pull out our cast-iron skillet which never gets used.  I'd heard steaks turn out amazingly on cast iron so I thought it was worth a try.  Tate took Jace into his bedroom to play and shut the door since I didn't want Jace exposed to all the smoke that would result from cooking them this way.  It's a good thing too... because even with the garage door, front door, and sliding glass door wide open and the ceiling fans on full blast, the house was still filled with smoke. 

The smoke settled once the steaks were done and soon enough it was clear enough for Tate and Jace to join me for dinner.  The steaks turned out really well from the cast iron skillet, but I'm not sure if all the smoke hassle was really worth it.  Next time I'd probably just grill them instead.  Jace enjoyed his own dinner while we enjoyed our steaks, in candlelight.  I knew not even to bother trying to give Jace steak since he hates any meat that's even a little bit thick and requires alot of chewing. 

After that Jace headed to bed while Tate and I enjoyed the box of chocolates he bought for me.  Valentine's day is just like any other day in our house, but it's nice to at least acknowledge the day a little and think about how thankful we are to have such a great little family.