Moroccan Valentine's Dinner

Before Christmas I went out to dinner with my girlfriends and we decided it would be fun to all go out to dinner for Valentine's day. We talked about the Meltintg Pot fondue restaurant, but then we changed our minds when we saw the Marrakesh was in the Entertainment book!

Dan and I; Scott and Debbie

Emma and Dan

What can be more fun than sitting on pillow stools, eating with your hands, with belly dancers and funny waiters to entertain?

We had a great time. The kids stayed over with Grandma and we got to go back in time to a world before kids where you could have grown-up conversations, stay out late, go to the store on a whim (and in a timely manner too) with out car seats, 5-point harnesses and an arsenal of diapers. Ahhh...it was nice while it lasted!

Dan got me roses and a sugar free truffle!!! I made him this.

Natalie's Valentine's Party 2008

At the first grade party, all the kids got to decorate Valentines' cookies.

Here is Natalie's cookie.

I was in charge of a craft...we made Valentine bear pins...
like this:
There were white and red bears too.

All the kids brought loads of Valentines (and candy) and stuffed the heart pockets full.

Natalie loved looking though all her Valentines.

Here's a shot of my littlest Valentine eating breakfast.

For dinner, since Dan was working late at the college, I got a heart shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's. The kids really wanted to dig in, so they helped blow on the pizza to cool it off faster.

Zanders's Valentines Party 2008

Today was Zander's Valentine's party at preschool. It was a lot of fun and I'm so glad I could be there to help in his class.

For snack he had chocolate covered heart-shaped pretzles, grapes and yo-gos.

Me and my cutie!

Here is his class photo. Zander told me last night when we were making his Valentines that he has a girlfriend (front row, third from the right). When I asked him what it means to have a girlfriend, he said "she sits by me and I sit by her." Then today as I'm dropping off Zander in the morning I talked to her mom and told her what he said. Then the mom said that while they were at Disneyland last week her daughter kept saying "I miss Zander."

Here he is cheering on his fellow classmates during a relay game.

Valentine's Goodies

Treats for the kids:


Natalie helped me make the heart sandwiches with raspberry cream cheese and raspberry jelly. They also had cottage cheese sundaes with a gummy heart on top. The last photo is a marshmallow "lollypop" Zander got from his teacher. It was so cute I had to share. You may not be able to tell, but she dipped them in white chololate then in Valentine sprinkles, added a stick and presto, easy!

Treats for Grown-Ups:

We couldn't get a sitter, so I made dinner. I also surprised Dan by cleaning all my scrapbooking stuff off the dining room table so we could enjoy eating in the dining room. After the kids were in bed, Dan and I had a nice salad with currants, Hungarian mushroom soup, and ham and cheese stuffed chicken...and some white Zinfandel to celebrate our dinner for 2.

Valentine Parties at School

I was lucky enough to spend time with Natalie at her Valentines party today. She had so much fun opening up all her valentines.





Natalie smothers her friends with hugs and kisses.


After Natalie got out of school, we rushed over Zander's party. Here he is...my funny Valentine. What a little goof ball puckering up for a valentine kiss.

Fabulous Food Friday

Old Fashioned Sugar Cookies

2 c sugar
1c shortening
1/2 c milk
3 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla
Flour

Cream sugar & shortening. Add eggs & beat well. Add milk & vanilla. Sift together dry ingredients w/1 c flour. Stir into creamed mixture. Add enough flour to make a soft dough. (about 6-7 cups) Roll dough to 1/4 in thick (or however thick you would like your cookie, but 1/4 in is a good thickness) & cut. Bake at 375 until set or edges BEGIN to turn a light golden. My oven bakes hot and took about 7 minutes.

Decorator Icing

2 boxes (or 2 lbs) powdered sugar
1 1/2 cups Crisco (either regular or butter flavored. Butter will turn it off white)1/2 cup HOT water
1/2 tsp salt
1-2 tsp vanilla (I use 2)
1/2 tsp almond extract (optional)

Combine powdered sugar & salt in large mixer bowl. Beat on slow with wire whip attachment until smooth (no more clumps) Add crisco 1/4 cup at a time until mixed. Add hot water, beat until almost fluffy. Add vanilla & almond flavoring. Beat on high 5-10 min until volume has increased & frosting has stiffer/fluffy consistency.

Note: This is the frosting the kids used yesterday to decorate their cookies, However I didn't use this frosting for the cookies pictured above. Instead, I used Royal icing from Wilton. It comes in a container similar to white glue. Then to dress it up, I generously sprinkled food grade glitter on top (it was just like doing a craft!)

To see how I packaged these cookies all up, go to my Paper Capers blog.

Valentine Cookie Decorating Party

I was in the mood for a party so I threw together a Valentine's party and invited the neighbor girls and a friend from Natalie's class. I've always thought it would be fun to have a Christmas cookie decorating day and invite lots of friends to come. However with as much as we have going on in December, it probably won't happen any time soon. Since Valentine's day is next week, I decided to jump on it and so we had ourselves a little Valentine party. (click on the photos to enlarge)


While we were waiting for everyone to arrive the kiddos decorated Valentine hearts with lots of stickers. They also had fun with heart shaped magic scratch paper. It starts out black and when you scratch it, rainbow colors show through. It was a big hit.

I made all the cookies ahead of time, so when everyone was ready I gave
each kid their own bowl of frosting (trying to reduce spredding germs).
They also added candy to the top and as you can see they did a great job.

Natlalie and Zander's Valentine Cookies...Yummers