St Valentine's Day family celebration: Thank you Pinterest!

Happy Late Valentine's Day everyone! Cap is learning to crawl so my ability to sit and update the blog or my Etsy store is rather limited. The store comes first, well, after sweeping, laundry, sleep and food! He has really picked up on it so quickly, within a week he now will follow me around the living room while I clean or work at my craft table. There are days when I am so tired but the majority of the time I am so in love with all three of the kids that I cannot wait to be pregnant again and start the whole process over! 

Valentine's day is a little different with three kids, Hubby had to work through until the afternoon and then we picked up the older kids from their mom's house, so we had to plan a family friendly, love filled evening instead of a romantic night out for just the two of us. 

Friday morning brought the citizens of the Hudson Valley almost a foot of snow and since Hubby had to be to work at 5am, we were up early to shovel so he could even get out of the driveway. After finishing up, he went to leave and I went to the window to make sure that he was able to get out of the driveway okay when I saw him sneaking in with this wonderful bunch of flowers! I am not the biggest fan of cut flowers, it seems an odd tradition to me, but since I don't get them often, the once or twice a year that he buckles and buys some are even more special. I do love fresh flowers in the house, it makes everything seem pretty and I love having the reminder of him sitting in the middle of the kitchen table all day. 

Originally, we had planned on making cupcakes with the kids but I wasn't sure how late they would end up getting home with the snow so I made them in the morning. I caught a look at a cupcake recipe on Pinterest where she put strawberries inside of the cupcake. I can't find the original blog that I found it on but here is another. The one that I was reading, the woman had cooked the cupcakes completely, then dug out the middle to put in the strawberries. I am impatient and with an infant on the hip, I need minimal time from start to finish for a project, so I just stuck the strawberry in the batter while it was cooking. I made six without strawberries and the rest with, which went over really well with the family. Sprinkles and some fresh strawberries topped them off beautifully (the leftover raw strawberries were finished well before the cupcakes, we love our fresh fruits here). 

yummy red velvet, strawberry, vanilla cupcakes!

I again stalked Pinterest to find quick Valentine's cards for the kids. Our Minecraft obsessed boy, Griffin got a Creeper themed card, while little miss Eve got a fox themed one. I found them here  and here. Mine are not nearly as fancy, but I had to work with the things I had and in a limited time frame. They both liked them, although I was told that my Creeper was not perfectly drawn. I'll get 'em next time! The fox was a wooden decoration that I had bought on clearance from Michael's more than six months ago and finally got to use!

      This was Hubby's Valentine's collection. The superhero poster in the background was one of his old shirts that he had worn so much that the collar was fraying unattractively. Since I hinted that he shouldn't really wear it out of the house, I figured that I would use it to decorate the house instead. Using a canvas from Michaels, again on clearance, I stapled the shirt onto the canvas frame and cut away the rest of the t-shirt. He liked it and I think it will look great in our bedroom (next to our Captain America and Doctor Who posters).
I have Pinterest (I might be addicted) to thank for the card and the bacon roses. I found the bacon roses here, although I did not follow the instructions perfectly. I refuse to drill holes in my cupcake pan, for one. I use that thing for everything! All I did was to roll the bacon, stab it through with a toothpick, then broil it for about half an hour. I let them sit until they were cool, them finangled them onto the skewer sticks that I had laying about. Those directions also called for using the stems from a bouquet of fake flowers, which I did not have on hand, so skewers with paper leaves in my TARDIS coffee mug worked beautifully. The card came from Pinterest too, but I can't find the link, I believe it was through Etsy's Pinterset board, but I am not sure, sorry!

In addition to my wonderful flowers (and a box of chocolate that is almost gone already!) Hubby and both of the older kids picked out cards for me, which were adorable. Eve's was the kitten, Grif picked out one that had Love you written out in stitches and Hubby picked out the diamond one (I told him that it made me feel like Beyonce, cause ya know, bling). He also gave me a cute little moon necklace, the package said "I love you to the moon and back" and an amber resin necklace that I have been eyeing since before Cap was born! We will see if we like it or not, if nothing else, it is pretty and the baby likes to hold onto it while nursing, so it's a win for me! It was a perfect Valentine's day. I love just spending time with the family with nothing too pressing or stressful going on.

Happy Valentine's Day to everyone and a huge thank you to my wonderful Hubby for being the best and making me laugh and love every single day!!!