I Love Love.

All of us over here at the Crain household want to wish you a Happy Valentine's Day! Whether you have a date or not, I still think this can be a fun day for you. Send a friend a little treat, drop off flowers to your widowed neighbor, send some chocolates to your mom...you are creative, think of something. Our plans include pizza, some homemade whole wheat brownies, and Limeberry (frozen yogurt) of course! As if we would celebrate any other way. We hope you all enjoy this day often thought of as the "greeting card holiday." Well, we are doing homemade Valentine's for one another that list the 14 things we love most, which we will also write for Eden too...so take that Hallmark! Just teasing card companies, I'm glad you can make some money today.

Enjoy your day! :)

XoXo,

The Crain's 

*Thank you to those of you that made it through my last post and encouraged me. I wasn't looking for affirmation, but God always knows what we need because I most certainly took each and every comment to heart. Thank you dear friends for reminding me that being honest is a-ok! 

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Love Day Recap

Our love day was great...well mostly. There were a few hiccups along the way, but we weren't treating this like a major holiday, just as an excuse to have fun.

I planned on making heart shaped pancakes, but didn't have a heart shaped cookie cutter. So, I thought, "gee, I'll be creative and improvise." I then went and made a heart template out of construction paper with the intention of dusting powdered sugar over it to create a cute little heart on top of the pancakes.

A big ant family had decided to move in to both of our powdered sugar boxes and then treated it as their own personal cemetery. Awesome.

Instead of feeling like a big failure I just served up plain ole round pancakes. They still tasted the same. Whatever.

Eden was dressed in her heart pajamas the night before. She spit up all over them. It was the last time we were having her wear them since she outgrew them. I didn't even get a picture. Thankfully her "aunt" Ruby had given her a cute cupcake outfit so she wore that instead.

She even pointed to the cupcakes. I think my girl is going to love sweets.

We did some working in the middle of the day.


I put Eden in her valentine outfit that I had been saving for FOREVER. It was a gift from Josh's relatives. She had a blowout...like a real big one. Thankfully I had done a photoshoot with her before she decided to completely cover herself in nastiness.

We visited her grandma at LIMEberry and Josh and I got our "valentines" from my mom. A heart shaped cookie completely covered in sprinkles. This was my last bit of dairy. I have to go off of it again for an unknown amount of time.

Eden also got some valentine's presents from her grandma "Lola." She is spoiled. Our daughter apparently loves puzzles. She is mesmerized by them.

We did not spoil our daughter nearly as much. We bought her a cute little headband from this etsy store. So cute. As soon as it arrives I promise to do a photo shoot and share with you.

For dinner we have spaghetti and turkey meatballs. Turkey because we are still on a diet and I like to think it erases the giant amount of sugar in the cookie. It didn't, but it tasted good so I don't care. We had our favorite french bread from Safeway. It's nearly $2 when not on sale, but worth every penny. All this was eaten on our wedding china. I'm so glad I finally pulled it out of storage. It is pretty.

We didn't forget about dessert. I made this dairy, egg, and nut free chocolate pudding cake. It is just like a chocolate molten cake (if you haven't had one then PLEASE do, you will love me for it). It is lots of chocolate and then oozes more chocolate. I ate half of it.

Together we sat down and read our valentine's that we made for one another. It was a great way to really see what we value about the other person. Josh and I wrote a lot of the same things for Eden's valentines. We love that girl.

Josh gave me roses. He started with 1 rose when we were first married and then adds one each year. This year he gave me four. Roses aren't my favorite flower, but I love the tradition. Plus roses were what I carried on our wedding day. It is so sweet that he remembers each year.

We ended our night with kisses for Eden and went to bed thankful for an excuse to celebrate one another and eat chocolate.

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A Day of Love

Happy love day! I wanted to share a couple of things before I sign out and spend the rest of the day with my pretty little valentine dates. 

Remember when I showed you a little peek of our mantle when talking about our valentine love notes bowl? No? Well, let me just remind you that it was girly...to the max. Yes, this mommy has embraced the pink and red just to give our little girl a taste of the holiday. I am growing soft in my old age. Well, I thought it was about to time to put a photo or two up since the day is upon us! 

For those of you with good eyes...yes, that is Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone in that pile of books. What can I say, I was desperate for a red book (not that I have anything against the book, just thought it was a funny choice for a Valentine's day mantle). Of course in my head I had planned out a much grander mantle, but I was limited to what I have on hand. Unfortunately, this is quite limiting since I really don't have much to work with, but hey, when it's free I just can't complain. The fun little love squared art on the window was a free printable. Who doesn't love the word free? Seriously, if you don't, we may have a hard time being friends...I will do anything to not pay a cent for something. Not, not stealing, I mean being resourceful and finding things around the house or on the internet. Goodness people, I haven't lost my mind completely. 

Another thing we did this year was make our own valentine's cards for Eden. We weren't ready to go completely crazy and send them to every single person we knew, so we just gave them to the grandparents, aunts, and uncles (sorry to our Washington family for having to spoil the surprise...we have them waiting for you!). I really enjoyed making these. I think I might just be one of those crazy moms that DIY's all of Eden's valentine's cards when she is in school. Seriously. I do have to say, I am not creative enough short on time so I borrowed this idea from another lovely blogger (who also got it from a fellow blogger). I am just so thankful for all those talented folks out there. You are all incredible! 

Here is a clearer shot of the actual valentine. I just printed it off on our home printer, attached to a sandwich bag filled with valentine kisses and that was that. Simple and Easy.

No matter if you are celebrating with a loved one, boycotting the holiday altogether, or hanging out on your couch watching a chick flick we just wanted to give a little blog love to you in the form of a valentine from us to you...

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Icky Love Stuff

Valentine's day is quickly approaching, and although the day consists of a whole bunch of red and pink which gives me a case of the shakes, I still like to think that I am supportive of the holiday. I understand that many have reasons to dislike said holiday, but to me it is just another fun day to celebrate love in all its glory. Obviously I should probably say "I love you" to Josh each day, and I may want to go out of my way to do something nice for him more than once a year, but hey it is an excuse to make heart shaped foods and eat chocolate all day long...not that I have ever needed an excuse for either of those. 


Alright, so how do I deal with a holiday that is rather "lovey dovey" and "cutesy" (which are two words that just do not come up in my vocab all that often)? Well, the thing is, sometimes I just have to embrace it as best as I can. This year there is a sickening amount (read: 4 items) of Valentine's day decor going on, however I really do think I can handle it for all 14 days that I am required to leave it up. Oh and for those of you who happen to adore pink, lovey dovey, cutesy, etc. please don't feel ashamed. I actually do appreciate it, I just don't like to admit to it. I may wear dresses, but sometimes I think I was better suited to be a boy. Oh and no, please do not comment on how you agree that I would make a much better boy than girl, this is neither the time nor place. Thanks. 


I actually took a cue from Valentine's day two years ago. Josh and I had kind of forgotten to use nice words to each other (okay fine, I forgot how to use nice words) so I thought it would be a good idea to cut out a bunch of red and pink hearts that we could write the things that we loved about each other as we felt lead to do so. It became a fun game to look under our pillows at night to see if "the goblin" as he was named, had delivered any hearts that day. We found ourselves discovering some of the little things that we really love about the other person that we would occasionally forget. Well, this year, with the addition of Eden, I thought it would be fun to have some little "valentine's" that we could write on to remind each one of us why we are loved. 

My stipulation was to only use items around the house. So, I found one of my favorite glass footed bowls from our candy buffet at our wedding as well as some crinkly paper that was used in a gift at one time or another. Then I found some printable valentine's and voila! We were now in business to write some lovey dovey stuff  to the members of the family. I find this to be a super simple way to celebrate this holiday by really reflecting on why you love your spouse, child, pet, grandma, etc. 

I adore these "How do I love thee? Let me count the ways..." valentine's. They were conveniently already numbered so we can just add our little sentiment on it each day and at the end we will be able to see which day the person wrote their little love note. You can find them here. Not quite sure why the paper looks pink in the image...

I thought these valentine's were so perfect for Eden. I just love their whimsical nature. We will write "mommy" or "daddy" on the front, and then there is a spot for a little note on the back. It will be fun to keep these and look back to them from year to year. You can find these here. 

Aren't they so cute all propped up in the bowl? It is going to be fun to see these accumulating and then read them on Valentine's day. 


I hope you all are thinking of ways that you can have fun with this holiday, despite many calling it a "greeting card holiday." 


Oh and yes, you can see a little peek of what I have been up to on our mantle. I am kind of shaking my head in disbelief that I have decorate the mantle for Valentine's day. And, um, don't tell anyone, but I secretly am liking having some pink and red in the house. Having a baby girl around is getting me all sentimental and cutesy. Oh boy...(pun not intended, but that was quite ironic...). I'll be back again with some photos of the finished mantle...once I get around to finishing it...




**P to the S....or p.s. as most people would say...we have added a few more photos to Eden's flickr page and I did a photo shoot with her yesterday so I am sure there will be more up soon. Well, as soon as she lets me have a few minutes to get them uploaded and edited. 

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