Three's Company on Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day (belated, apologetically)! It took me a few days to compile all of the heart-shaped fun that made up our Cox Family V-Day celebrations. Like SO many other bloggers I've been reading lately... most of us agree that Valentine's Day is WAY more fun when you have a little one to spoil! Although, if I am to be fair, I've always been a fan of the love holiday... I remember as a kid my mom giving us little boxes of heart-shaped sweet tarts... and not the normal chalky sweet tarts, but the kind that were made ESPECIALLY for Valentine's Day with the sour candy coating on top... y'all remember those?! Oh, did I EVER live for those sweet n sour little bites! They came in red, pink and white... and I am sure that red were my favorite. I've never really understood the chocolate craze that Valentine's Day experts buzz about... BRING ON THE SWEET TARTS and you'll spoil this girl SWEET! :)

Regardless of where my Valentine's Day love comes from, I tend to get a bit excited about the holiday and even a bit domestic... hence making Caden outfits the past two years... :) Since Caden got to wear the homemade goods for his school Valentine's Day Party, I figured it was ONLY appropriate for him to wear his NEW PINK duds for our family Valentine's Day date on Sunday night.
Goldfish, my PINK iPhone, my PINK duds... I'm ready for fam date night! :) Melt my pea-pickin' heart, do I EVER love a man in pink! Or a toddler as it may be!

We are big into FAMILY date nights... it is one of our most favorite things to do and we BRAVE a lot of restaurants to make it happen and thankfully, since we've been doing it long enough, Caden is pretty good when we head out and about. Especially, if we hit up a place that has chips and queso!! Are you kidding me, who isn't entertained when you've got a basket of chips in front you, right?!

Before heading in to eat at one of our favorite places in town... GLORIA'S, we tried to get a few pics of the pinkie-boy!

He was being SO serious... or artsy... or something... I'll get him a few points for drama but come on... crack a smile!!

And then a few of my two boys... both in pink! :)

Kind of close...
WOAH... look over there...
How about with black beans on our faces at dinner?! Yep, I think that's as close as we'll get to a good pic!

After eating two BOWLS of hot sauce all by myself, and of course all of the other yumminess that comes with dining at Gloria's, our fam date night came to close... BUT wait... what about dessert?! Oh yes... how could I forget?! As soon as we got home we cut a piece (or quarter) of the fudge pie I made earlier in the day (an Aunt Emily specialty) and scooped Cade-man some ice cream with a few M&Ms on top and and clanged our spoons to a LOVE-LY date night... one for the records books!

On Monday, the OFFICIAL day of LOVE, Caden and I celebrated with a Valentine's Day THEME day! Wa-hoooo! Of course, my inspiration came from none other than The Poe Fam blog that I have mentioned several times before, but as always I did adapt some of the activities to fit the resources I already had available to me and the interests of my little man!

The day started off with the BEST of intentions, but before 9am I had already hit the "reset" button twice on our day. (If only there was such a thing, huh?) It started out with a little heart-shaped pancake catastrophe, complete with a MELTED cookie cutter and a PERFECTLY red, heart-shaped burn on the bottom of one of my frying pans... oops! :) Apparently, even LOW heat will melt a plastic cookie cutter... go figure! :) It's PLASTIC, Katie... should have been my first clue! Ah, well the show must go on! SO then I switched pans and things were ROCKIN' until I went to make my first flip and COMPLETELY flipped the pancake OUTSIDE of the pan... onto my stove... DOUBLE OOPS! RESET! RESET! SO after WAY too long of a wait, Caden finally got ONE heart-shaped pancake... and I considered that a HUGE victory!

After breakfast I needed a break (HA!) so I decided to do a couple of our "sit on the couch" activities. We started with another FUN heart game on Starfall. Click here if you want to play!

THEN, we watched the Valentine's Day line-up that SesameStreet.org did especially for the day! It was really good... so we watched it twice! :)

THEN we read some of our FAVORITE books about LOVE and Valentine's Day. We also talked about God's love for us... and "memorized" the verse, "God is LOVE!" 1 John 4:8. Shamefully, I didn't do any more with the Bible verse than that...

After couch time with our computer games and books, it was time for Caden to open his special Valentine's Day gift from Mommy!! A box of chocolates with SHAMU on the front!! :) Thank you Target!!

Notice, Shamu (the REAL thing) was near by! :)

Caden took a bite out of every piece and decided that not one of them as a whole piece was worth the calories... smart boy! :) Next up, we did some sorting with conversation hearts!

This activity was pretty much a bust. Caden was TOTALLY not into doing anything structured with the hearts, BUT he did have fun putting them in and out of the muffin tin. I tried counting, color-sorting, etc. BUT after a few tries with each I figured it wasn't worth the battle... it's supposed to be a FUN day!

Next up, find the HEARTS! Caden LOVED this! I was surprised after how uninterested he was in the conversation heart games that he enjoyed this as much as he did. I used an old issue of Real Simple and placed heart stickers throughout the magazine and asked Caden to find them! He went page by page until we were finished... and Real Simple is a BIG mag! Go Caden! :)

Around lunch time we took a quick break and headed to Sonic to grab a drink to accompany our "romantic" Valentine's Day picnic at the park! Thanks Aunt Ree Ree and Uncle Tag for the yummy gift card!! Think we'll be stopping by Sonic a lot this week! :)

And now to munch on some grub! We used Caden's lunch box in lieu of a fancy basket... I think it did the trick! :)

Lunch was of no interest to the Chade... and of course it wasn't with the PARK staring him in the face... GO PLAY! Lunch can wait! :)

I cannot get over how OLD he is looking these days. Climbing, playing, swinging... all with limited help needed from Mommy... he's one of those independent playground kids... when did that happen?!

"Uh... Mommy... I'm a little higher than I'd like to be... and the curve is comin' up! HELP!!!!" Okay, so maybe he does still need me from time to time! :)

After some fun at the park, it was time for a NAP! Once Caden arose from his nap... we had a Heart Scavenger hunt with some CUTE stickers KK bought Caden for Valentine's Day! Thanks KK!

He did a great job finding the hearts and had a fun time showing Daddy all he found when he got home later that evening!

Speaking of...

Justin and I DID manage to have a little date night of our own after Caden went to bed on Monday night. We all ate a YUMMY dinner... Caden had a special pizza and Justin and I had YUMMY wild salmon and asparagus and THEN... Justin gave me the GREATEST gift ever... TRUE shoulder to shoulder time on the couch SANS computer! He did NOT work all night! He even left his computer at work so he wouldn't be tempted!! Now if that doesn't say love then I don't know what does! :) Seriously, it was such a treat to sit and laugh together at the drama unfolding on the Bachelor... without me having to repeat myself or say, "did you hear me?" "are you paying attention to me?" "can you stop real quick, I have GOT to tell you something!"

During half-time of the Bachelor we toasted with a little Champagne (Club Soda for me) and the last HALF of our fudge pie! :) See why we had to eat salmon and veggies for dinner?! :) We knew what was comin'...

Cheers to a wonderful Valentine's Day (weekend) celebration with my SWEET boys! I love y'all!