valentines day.

ETA: Sugar cookie recipe

For the record, I find the baking time excessively LONG!!  I bake my largish cookies for only about 8-10 minutes and my medium sized for 8, and my tiny ones for 5 minutes. I promise I will share the icing recipe with you another day. It's really not that hard to make, just very time consuming. :D

Phew, so we've been quite busy around here at the Workman house. Celebrating Valentines Day, working, cleaning and spending time yesterday for Family Day. I've got quite the blog post to share with you, and a ton of pictures too. I'll have to start with Valentines Day.

Alright, so the last couple of times I've done these fancy sugar cookies, the kids have been right there beside me, looking at me with their sweet little tear filled eyes, and wanting to participate so badly. So I relented and made some special chocolate sugar cookies complete with all the pink frosting they would need to create their masterpieces. (I have to add, that doing these cookies is extremely time consuming. To make and dye the frosting alone is at least an hour, not to mention making the dough and rolling and baking the cookies, but I love my kids and I would do anything for them)

The frosting. The piping bags hold the thicker frosting for the outline and the squeeze bottles had the "flooding" or runny frosting to fill it the outline. Everyone had a baggie of cookies.

 

(the paper towels in the bottom of the glasses are damp, and stop the icing tips from drying out and clogging with frosting.)

Alright, everyone is ready to go.

 

 

This is where I just take a step back, do some deep breathing exercises and let them do their thing. Just like I have to resist the urge to re-make their beds in the morning.

 

(I'll just quickly explain the concept of these cookies, so you pipe the edge and fill with the flood icing. Then use a toothpick to coax the runny liquid to the edges, where the thicker piping holds in all in. It smooths out like glass and hardens after a while)

 

 

 

 

 

 

We ate as we went, some more than others...

 

I even managed to make a couple, but they didn't turn out the greatest, because I had to keep getting up and down to help the kids. Can you pick mine out?

 

By the end, Hunter had (as usual) grown bored of the task at hand and ran off to go and play the computer, but Lily really surprised me. She decorated the rest of Hunter and Ava's cookies, plus the extras I had set aside. She really took her time and I could clearly tell that she was enjoying herself.

Okay, maybe she was just enjoying all the frosting she was squirting down her throat.

After cookie decorating, it was time to start getting supper ready. Now if I was smart, I should have shared this with you before Valentines Day, but just bookmark it for next year if you're interested.

Okay, supper.

Salad.

I had Ava cut cucumber hearts using a small cookie cutter.

 

 

 

And I cut out cheese X's and O's.

 

And I really wanted a red veggie in there too, (another valentine shape from this set, that I was using) but my pregnant brain forgot to get the red pepper (or cherry tomatoes) I was debating between the two, and forgot to get them all together. I thought about adding some strawberries for color, but gave up in the end, and we had cucumber/cheese salad.

 

Fruit salad.

Because every Valentines Day has to incorporate strawberries in someway or another, I decided to cut the strawberries in the shape of hearts, add some flower cantaloupes and sprinkle with some sugar.

 

Now, this may seem really lame thing to post about, but seriously, I started cutting these strawberries individually, and then realized that there had to be an easier way to get them into this shape without wasting my time. So I will tell you how to cut them into heart shapes. If you are a gourmet chef, please skip and forgive me.

Okay, start by taking the strawberry.

 

Lop off the top. Straight across.

 

Then cut a trench like groove into the berry top.

 

Here's another angle on that.

 

Then start slicing it down the side.

 

Another shot.

 

Repeat, repeat, repeat until you have a lovely little pile of deep red strawberry hearts.

 

Top with flower (cookie cutters again) cantaloupe shapes. I was going to sprinkle them with red sugar, but I used it for something else instead... (keep reading to find out just what that was.)

 

Dessert.

Since we already had a ton of cookies, I really didn't want to make anything too much, and have lots of leftovers, which you all know I would eat, so I decided to do a cupcake dessert.

So my awesome find, this cupcake mix that makes 12 cupcakes. (found at the Dollar Store, in the States) What a perfect amount!!

 

(By the way, the box lies. I only got 10 cupcakes, and please excuse my messy liners. I had about a million thing on the go when I was doing these.)

So the idea was to make the cupcakes in advance. Frost them with some yummy light pink frosting...

 

And have them all ready to go after dinner for our very own cupcake bar. Complete with all different kinds of Valentines candy.

 

I would like to draw your attention to the right corner of this picture... who knew they made Valentines Candy Corn? How cool is that??!!

Drinks.

So I had asked what things everyone did for Valentines day, and Lynn told me about her Sprite with grenadine drink, so I thought why not. Lets give it a try.

So I took our special glasses and sugared the rim with red sprinkle sugar.

 

Then I filled them with Sprite, a splash of grenadine and garnished with a strawberry and lemon wedge.

 

Main course.

You'll have to use your imagination for this one, cause I didn't take any pictures, but then again I didn't really do anything special either. I barbecued chicken and grilled up some bacon and we had BBQ chicken/bacon sandwiches.

Dinner time!

So the last couple of things I had planned for the kids were these little buckets I had picked up at Target forever ago. I filled them with little dollar store goodies and had them waiting at their plate.

 

 

 

I also picked up the most adorable coupon book for kids.

It has the cutest little coupons inside, things like this

 
 

So instead of buying 3 of these books, I decided to do coupon day (probably a Friday) where I will pick out a coupon and my kids have the whole week to cash it in whenever they want.

And last couple of pictures from our Valentines day, is the cupcakes.

 

 

 

(Just pretend I'm not a horrible mother and there is a picture of Ava here... how she got missed, I'm not sure)

Anyways, that sums up our Valentines Day. We put the kids to bed and me and Darren watched the movie Passendale. Another great holiday here.

Comments

[Verna]

Where do you get all that energy? I'm tired just reading your blog.
What a great Mom. Your children will always remember the great things you did with them.

[Sherelle]

forgot to ask...can you share the recipe for the chocolate cookies?

[Sherelle]

Can I be a kid again and be your child? Everything here is pure eye candy...it all looks so fun! I love the salad and the drinks...I am keeping these in mind for next year...LOVE it all! TFS!

[Janay]

Here's what I like to do for such holiday occcasions such as V-day. I pretend they don't exist...that way, they pass by and I don't have to lift a finger. :) Ahhh the life....

[amanda]

Sometimes reading your blog makes me feel so inadequate.

And tired.

[lynn Crapo]

Okay......could YOU pleeeeease post a picture of your MOTHER OF THE YEAR AWARD hanging on the wall??!!!!

Absolutely FABULOUS dawlin'!! Only you could make that mock pink champagne even better. I LOVED it!

What a great and memorable weekend for sure.

[Trisha]

Hunter, Ava and Lily...I want your mom!!

Did you like the movie??

[Vanessa]

Absolutely gorgeous!! You go to so much effort which I think shows such love and devotion to your beautiful family. I hope it's ok if I borrow the cupcake and cookie idea for Annika's birthday party later on this year:) - I'd love the recipe for the cookies too (that icing sounds like hard work!)

Vanessa x