Valentines Day

Our family valentine's day, thanks to a bit of advance planning, was sweet.  In many senses.

The Valen-table

Dinner was beautiful . . . more sweetness than I usually allow near our digestive systems.  We'd planned the menu way back in December; N-son and J-son had offered ideas and taken down notes.  (I made them write that their father and I were going to gaze into each other's eyes and sigh, so it was very funny to open up my notes this weekend and read "red jello.  Sigh. Sigh.  pink lemonade.")  We made cinnamon-heart applesauce, pink lemonade, red jello with cherries (picked this past summer, frozen, and brought out for the special occasion).   We had some lovely heart-shaped cookies given us by a friend -- thanks, Linda!   The tablecloth was actually a fitted sheet, left-over from the daughter days.

Red jello with cheries and whipped cream,
pink lemonade, and tap water.

At the center of the meal was homemade reuben sandwiches.  In advance, I made two loaves of rye bread, and I added food dye to one loaf.   After we fried the sandwiches up, a little mix-and-match with a cookie cutter yielded this:

Reuben, red reuben.

And then there were the photographs . . .

Getting ready to pose . . . 

What a lot of love!

Ahead of time, I took some way-too-cute photos of my sons; these photos offended the boys' manly sensibilities, but endeared them mightily to their doting sisters.  Aren't the guys too adorable for words?  The boys also recorded a drums/vocal version of "You are my sunshine" that I sent via email along with the pictures.  (I can't figure out how to attach the music to the blog).  The musical/photo card was a huge hit all around.  Yay!

All around a lovely day.  As planned.  Afterward, I gazed into my husband's beautiful face.  Sigh. Sigh.