Wordless Wednesday 10

Even more priceless would have been photos of the faces of each family member as he/she entered the dining room and found one of these Valentine hearts resting on each dinner plate. Just imagine:

The preschool girls with deep admiration and shrieks of delight for their wonderful mother and her excellent ideas.

The 10-year old boy looking a bit indecisive but definitely believing his mother is the sweetest person he's ever met.

The tween-age girl with an outward look of disbelief that her imperfect mother would even attempt such a feat, but inwardly cheering for such a great and perfect mom.

Two teen-age boys who couldn't have been any more extreme in their responses. One with a look that meant, "Seriously, Mom? Did you really have to do THIS? Have you not even considered what my friends would say if they saw this? Of course they will never see this because I'm going to eat it before there is any proof that I actually ate a hot dog cupid's heart for Valentine's Day dinner, but what IF?" (Please don't tell him that this idea was titled "Puppy Love" in the magazine) And another boy, who with a small smile wordlessly said, "I just love to see him get so upset about the little things. Thank you, my dear, loving mother, for antagonizing him so. You make my job of embarrassing him so much easier by the loving things you do."

And my love-struck husband who carved a small portion in his day to remember the holiday and to take me to breakfast, finishing the picture by emitting small chuckles every few minutes and with a look that said, "You are always so predictably unpredictable."

Or maybe he did actually say that.

Gotta love Family Fun magazine and their great holiday ideas.

And we finished the meal with Sweetheart Cupcakes from allrecipes.com. I'm not into buying boxed cake mixes but they had these creative red and pink surprise centers. And I just happened to find a box of yellow cake mix on the bent-and-dent discount table at Giant that morning. I did, however, make the icing from scratch. Wanting to give them a strawberry flavor I considered putting strawberry puree in the icing but since that would mean that I couldn't eat one due to allergies, I opted instead for Nesquick Strawberry powder. An experiment that worked quite well! It definitely helped to cover the boxed-mix taste of the dessert.

King Family Icing

Cream together:
1 tsp. vanilla
1 c. shortening
1 c. butter or margarine
1 lb. powdered sugar

For strawberry flavored icing, add Nestle's Quick, Strawberry flavor. Don't ask me how much since I just dumped til it was tasty. Enjoy!