3 love bugs and a monkey....

Tradition has it here in our household that every year on Valentines Day, my boys each get a giant LOVE BUG balloon...

...this year tradition was altered a bit.  You see, instead of celebrating Valentines Day on the 14TH like every other human being, we celebrated on Wednesday February 10TH (I was out of town in New York on the 14TH)... as a result, the local Maceys Food Store didn't have all of their Valentines Day balloons yet in stock on the 9TH when I went to go pick out the balloons, so I had to settle for one giant LOVE BUG balloon, 2 small LOVE BUG balloons and one giant monkey balloon.  The boys didn't mind the change, they love balloons regardless of shape, color or size,  so the day still went well according to plans.

Every Valentines Day we eat doughnuts for breakfast with strawberry or chocolate milk.  Strawberry milk and chocolate milk aren't uncommon around here, but doughnuts are.  They're a rare treat... I NEVER buy them, (mainly because I can't eat them so I forget they exist) except for on this occasion.  I encountered a problem though as I was getting the doughnuts; our oldest, Noah, is now allergic to gluten/wheat/flour; he has been since this past November.  This meant that he wouldn't be able to enjoy doughnuts in the morning with his dad and brothers; I couldn't bare to let him down; nothing is worse than watching a group of people eat something YUMMY right in front of you but you can't eat it because it will make you sick... SO... I did some thinking in the days before our little V-day celebration and remembered that I can buy (for an arm and leg) a box of 6 small chocolate glazed gluten free doughnuts in the frozen section at Good Earth. Perfect! I wanted Noah's doughnuts to look fun like the other boys, so I squirted his doughnuts lightly with some water, then sprinkled them with stars (I wish I had thought to buy heart sprinkles earlier from the store).  The doughnuts were a hit with the boys, especially Noah.

Noah's sweet treat.

The gluten free doughnut... not too bad.

Following breakfast, I helped Noah write his name on all of his valentines he was taking to school the next day to give to his classmates.

After Noah was done signing his name on all of the valentines, he and Ian helped me make a batch of heart shaped crayons that we wrapped up and gave away with the valentines and candy.

STEP ONE: The boys had to take all the wrappings off of the crayons.

STEP TWO: The boys broke the crayons into smaller pieces, then divided them up among a bunch of heart shaped cupcake oven proof thingies. 

THE THIRD & FINAL STEP: We baked the crayons for about 17 minutes until they all melted, then I took the tray out of the oven and let the crayons cool.  After about 10 minutes of cooling, out heart shaped crayons were done and ready for packaging.

After the boys finished making their crayon hearts, we made wheat free pasta with tomato sauce for lunch and drank strawberry soda...again, soda isn't usually a beverage my kids are allowed to drink. The norm is MILK (LOTS of it; we drink between 8-9 gallons of 1% milk each week & that doesn't even include the milk formula that Bentley drinks) and water.

(that's totally a fake smile).

For dinner we made red strawberry jello hearts and our own little pizzas.