Roses are red, cinnamon rolls are brown...

I hear that it is National Sticky Bun Day.  Woo hoo!  Go celebrate!  I'm not sure if it means you should have a cinnamon roll in honor of the day or if it means you should save the tasty heart attack on a dessert plate and refuse to buy or eat one on its day of celebration.  The Good Doctor has decided that it  means a dozen red roses should arrive on my doorstep.  At least that's what I thought until I read the card.  It did not say, "Happy Sticky Bun Day" but instead said something mushy about this being Valentine's Day and all.  Seems as if those roses he ordered to be delivered on Valentine's Day finally arrived, a week late, but not too late, of course, to celebrate the breakfast item/dessert already referenced.

Roses are red,

Cinnamon rolls are brown.

Flowers that arrive a week late,

Could make the Good Doctor frown.

And if you want to know which company you should NOT use next Valentine's Day, you might want to check with the Good Doctor first.

Loving encouragement from moi

I'm not good with words of affirmation.  In the five love languages list it's all the way at the bottom of my list.  Right down there with physical touch.  Way down there.  Way, way down.  As in, you can't get any lower.

It's not that I can't think of encouraging words; it's that I think of too many words.  I would love to affirm the Good Doctor by saying, "Thank you for going to the grocery store for me," but then I would really have to follow it up with, "Too bad you got cherry M and Ms when I explained in great detail that what I wanted was a bag of Valentine M and Ms so I could make cookies and those cherry things are just gross.  Who ever heard of cherry flavored M and Ms?"  See?  I just don't think he would feel so affirmed after all that.  And I'd really like to say, "Thank you for volunteering to go back to the grocery store to get Valentine M and Ms so I can make cookies," but then I would definitely have to add, "But why would you buy me a whole bag of mini regular M and Ms rather than the requested Valentine M and Ms so now I have to go through the whole bag and pick out just the red ones for Valentine's Day?"  Just doesn't work well when all my life I've been told that if I have nothing nice to say I should say nothing at all.

And it's not much easier with the children.  I'd love to say, "What a lovely purse you made me out of jean pockets," but then in full disclosure I'd have to add, "I'll just put it with all of the other lovely trash-to-someone's?-treasure crafts you've made for me."  How crushing!  I couldn't possibly say that.  Or when I'd love to say, "That was so nice of you to leave the room before farting," but I'd have to follow it up with, "But you really should not have come back into the kitchen so soon afterward because your scent is killing off the guests."  Yes, sometimes it's better to say nothing at all.

So what's a mom to do when she knows she should be more encouraging?  Well, I'm working on it.  I'm much better at writing than speaking so when I saw an idea to write encouraging thoughts on hearts and post one each day from Feb. 1 - Feb. 14 on each child's door, I was on it!  I did enlist the Good Doctor's help in writing encouraging notes but that's because 14 words of affirmation times 6 children (the oldest and youngest missed out this time) equals... well, even I know it equals a lot of writing.  Someone did suggest that I should also include the Good Doctor, maybe even posting his hearts on our bathroom mirror but, well, maybe next year.

Instead, I'll just thank him for all his help with the hearts.  But you could have heeded my instructions to read my comments first so you didn't double up.  I had to redo half of them!

Oops, too many words.  Time to shut my mouth.

Happy Family Love Day to one and all!

A Pinterest holiday

I just may have gone a little overboard on the Valentine's gifts this year. Thanks to Pinterest, that is. It can't be blamed entirely on Pinterest, however, as I have never bought those pre-printed commercialized cards for my kids to fill out. Back in the days before Pinterest there was Family Fun magazine and this little gem filled my file cabinets with all kinds of useful and fun activities, including creative Valentine's Day cards.

So this year, in addition to our hot chocolate Valentine's (see last year's post for more information on this one), we also made...






What can I say? This gave the little girls something to do, helped me bless the kids with sugary, pre-packaged treats that I wouldn't normally buy, we have personalized gifts for the neighbors, and we also have a basketful of goodies to take to our friends at Allenberry Playhouse who are just returning after more than a month off. Good timing, for sure!

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!