Fancy Pants Valentine's Day 7 Course Dinner

It has been such nice weather lately. Because of the nice weather, we were able to walk to Daniel's preschool this afternoon. We all loved it!! It makes for some serious Spring Fever!! When we left the house Daniel saw me wearing my sunglasses so he insisted he needed his, too. As for Noah, he started off with socks on, but after about the fifth time of him kicking them off I gave up. I took them off and he went barefoot on the way back home--crazy kid!!For Valentine's Day Aaron surprised me with some beautiful roses Saturday evening. They are starting to bloom and look very pretty.

I surprised Aaron with a candy bar poster. It said (the red words show what candies I used): "To my Hot tamale and Sweetart, For Valentine's Day I wanted to tell you how much Extra I love your Snickers. They make me Rolo-over and fall to Pieces. Even when I can be an Airhead or if I am going through a Sour Patch you still make living life a Joy and a Bliss complete. You are truly a Lifesaver. I love your Kisses they send me into Orbit even as far as the Milky Way. I love how you can be social when I am not. How you can be the Ice Breaker in a conversation. I love how much you love our Jr. Mints and how much they Mento (mean to) you. I love you a ton even if you can be a Nerd. I am happy to be your spouse and eternal companion! I wouldn't have it any other way!! Happy Valentine's Day! Love Becca XXOO" This is kind of a two fold gift since I get to enjoy some of the candy as well!! Always a good thing! For Valentine's Dinner I wanted to do something fancy. I decided to try out a seven course meal and teach the kids some appropriate manners for nice dining. We started out in the living room with an appetizer including crackers, vegetables, rye bread, hummus and cheese spread. The first lesson I tried to teach the kids is to not complain when they see food they don't like. This will always be an ongoing lesson, unfortunately. We also tried to have polite conversation that didn't involve any bodily noises or complaining about the food. They did pretty well, considering.

Moving on to the next course at the actual dining table. I wanted to have nice some nice ambiance, but the only candles I could find were my Salt City smelly candles. At least if the food didn't smell good the candles did. I also wanted to have a proper place setting, but Sarah has been pilfering all my silverware to use in her toy kitchen. That meant we didn't have enough clean utensils for a proper place setting. Doh!! Oh well maybe next time. We ate off of paper plates with plastic cups on top of plastic place mats because we are such high class. Just joking! I did it as a little Valentine present to myself to make clean up a little easier for me. The second course was salad with their choice of dressing. The third course was chicken and rice soup with some rolls. The fourth course was Chicken Cordon Bleu. The fifth course was a small fillet of fish. The sixth course was some Raspberry Sorbet to cleanse the palette. The seventh course was some brownies baked in heart shaped tins. I am glad to say the whole dinner was Daniel friendly, too, except for the cheese appetizer and the Cordon Bleu. I think Daniel liked most of it, too, which is surprising. After dinner we went around the table telling everyone one thing we loved about them. The kids loved it.

Noah was just happy to be in the high chair at the table. Noah's favorite thing was the roll. Once he got that, we didn't hear another peep from him. After eating/sucking/playing with the roll I don't think he could have smeared it much further if he had been trying. What a messy boy!

I think the kids had fun with dinner. I learned that learning and developing manners will always be a work in progress at our house. Maybe by the time the kids start dating they may have learned a few manners. Here's to hoping!!