Monday, February 17, 2014

Valentine's Day!

Better late than never!

 We were quite busy with Valentine's Day last week.  Even my bread turned out shaped like hearts. 

I really hope to find my bread pans soon, because this was not planned, it was just a coincidence.  An uncannily accurate coincidence, as Klenda pointed out!

Actually, knowing that she learned enough anatomy to diagram a loaf of bread does my heart good!


In other news of the missing, I can't find my normal heart cookie cutters.  I had one that was rather large, so I decided to go ahead and make my favorite cookies, just not as the usual sandwich cookies.

Problem? What problem?
I hadn't factored in the fact that the dough would expand... and we ended up with cookies the size of Oob's head!  He did not find this a problem, however...

As you can see in the background, we also got 2 dozen heart balloons which are still floating around the house, being used for fun, games, and neutral bouyancy experiments.  





I also found a package of adhesive mustaches!

Not all Zoomlians loved this idea, but the Zoomlians that loved it, really loved it!!

And of course there were valentines! 



Lots and lots of valentines!





Our friend, Amie,who is living with us, made gorgeous, intricate valentines of the various favorite animals (that bottom one is a tapir!) which the Zoomlians are using as puppets!


And, naturally, there were valentine sweets: the older Zoomlians set up a treasure hunt for the younger Zoomlians, and then the younger Zoomlians set up a treasure hunt for the older Zoomlians.  The treasures were conversation hearts and heart shaped gobstoppers (called, alarmingly, "heartstoppers!").






And we had a jello heart (which got mostly eaten before I remembered to get a picture), and a big pink strawberry rice crispy heart (which got all the way eaten before I got the camera).

And, of course, Pink Burping Cows...of Love!


We are kind of crazy about Valentine's Day, and I think I've figured out why: it's a holiday that celebrates love, and that's what we do.  We love people. 

Not perfectly, of course, but that's really what our family is about: God gives us people (including each other) to love, and we do.


3 comments:

Sue Elvis said...

Wendy,

I get the feeling Valentine's day is a much bigger celebration in your country than ours. Yes, we have all the red and pink cards and flowers and chocolates. The shops do a roaring trade on these. But the day is mainly for boy/girl friends, husbands/wives etc. It's not a day centred around the whole family. I really enjoyed reading all about your Valentine's Day. It looks like your family had a lot of fun on a day full of love.

Wendy said...

I think that's the same here (the focus is on romantic love), we just choose to celebrate it more expansively! Culturally, in the US, it's a big pressure holiday especially for men, and the retailers price things accordingly. I really dislike this. How romantic is it to get flowers because your sweetheart HAS to buy them for you?

One thing we do have is that school children often will exchange valentines with their classmates (each child gives a valentine to everyone in the class - they sell packs of lots of little valentines for this purpose). That sounds nice, but I actually didn't like that when I was in school. I knew many of the valentines I was getting were from kids who disliked me and meant quite the opposite of what the valentine said!

I still like Valentine's Day, even more so when I realized I could just get rid of what I didn't like about it! It was very freeing to realize that I didn't have to want flowers because the cultural script said I was supposed to want them that day.

I'd much rather use the holiday as a day to remember how much we really do love each other, and to reach out to people that we care about. The funny thing is, it has become a much bigger day to us as a family than it would have been if we had stuck with the usual interpretation!

SwissKat said...

Oh, and you love them so very well!! Valentine's day isn't so big here, but I'm glad I have the memories of two valentine's days spent with you all to feast upon! As I recall, the treats just kept coming, a new and better one every hour!! A day after Valentine's day J. showed up with some flowers, feeling guilty - however, I hadn't even thought anything was missing. Besides, we have the world's best chocolate year round.