Valentine's Day 2011

Happy Valentine's Day 2011!  We hope that your day was filled with as much love, laughter and heart-shaped food as ours was.  It actually seemed as if Valentine's Day was about a week-long holiday in our house.  From the task of supervising Benjamin as he signed his classroom valentines to the preparation for "Cupid's" arrival for the kids to the valentines we received in the mail from grandparents and aunts, it was a full week of celebrating red, pink, hearts and kisses.  And we loved every minute of it!  Below are our photos from the day and mainly from the Valentine's lunch we had with our group of friends after school that day.  So, XOXO and here you go...

Our three little valentines waiting around for their friends to arrive for lunch, looking through some of their valentines that arrived in the mail.

Let the party begin....and we started with lunch.  Ta-da, our heart-shaped spread: heart sandwiches, pasta salad with heart-shaped cheese chunks, spinach salad, and fruit hearts.  We also had pink Love Potion punch.

Cupid shot his orange arrows right through these strawberries!

Favors for our guests: heart-shaped Krispie Treat pops with a pink chocolate drizzle for the kiddos and Dove chocolate for the mommies.  Something has to help us survive the day with kids who are strung out on sugar, right? 

 Heart-shaped brownies...

After lunch we did a little craft before handing out our valentines.  Everyone in this group knows each other well so it was fun to make valentines for all of our friends and hand them out.  Our craft was a little mailbox in which to collect our valentines.

All set up and waiting for the kids...

Nate, concentrating on his decorating.  These boys of mine just love their crafts!

Real men decorate pink crafts with heart foamies.  These three are secure enough in their masculinity to take decorating with pink polka-dot foamies and heart-shaped bling seriously!  What can I say?  A Valentine's craft loses that Valentine's appeal when it's blue and green instead of pink and red...

Miss Abby's first real craft.  She and her buddy Adriana sat at their own table and decorated.  Abby did prefer ripping the stickers off once they were on, but we are working on this :).

Adriana and below her Gabby!

The whole gang (l-r): Brianna, Luca, Samantha, Nate, Abby, Ben, Tyler, Adriana, Alyssa, Tommy, Gabby and Hannah.

Handing our valentines.  Abby liked to hand ours out to everyone...

What a fun, fun day we had celebrating Valentine's with our friends.  So from all of us here in the Martin family:

Rose are red,

Violets are blue,

Hugs and kisses,

From us to you!

XOXOXO, Happy Valentine's Day 2011!