Valentines!!!

Don't you just love Valentines Day? It is a not very stressful, very few expectations. It really is one of my favorite holidays. We make heart shaped chocolate ice cream sandwiches (which after the annual sugar free month--I am really on a sugar high eatting those!!), leave things on our friends's door steps, make valentines for 80 plus kids in four plus classrooms....but it is all fun!!! For me Valenines feels like I am tossing a welcome mat for spring!! I hope spring is near in Tokyo too! One of the traditions that we do for Valentines is Heart Attacking. We do a few variations but this is one I like. The kids wake up on Valentines to complimentary hearts all over their door.


It is nice to really think of multiple positive characteristic of each of my childern individually. Some years some childern require more time thinking of ways to fill up that door than others....but it always makes me really think about the things I really enjoy about them!!



Another Valentine traditions that is .....well...mostly annually.... is this valentine party. We invite a few couples to our house and I make what I hope will be a nice dinner. The wonderful words for the invitation are my sister Tara's. I always say that she is an artist with words. I can just tell her my ideas and the "feeling" I would like to portray and she nails it everytime with her poetry.
It says :
Cupid has struck at our house, You are invited and so is your spouse
We're having a movie party and dinner for you, We'll celebrate Valentines Day two by two
Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, always brought love to the picture show,
Bring the movie that has your favorite scene, Have it "cued" (yea, we have used this for a few years....) and we will play it on our screen
We'll all go home with cupid's love dust in the air
Hope you and your Valentine will be there...

See isn't she good!!??
Everyone is invited to bring a favorite romantic movie with a favorite scene picked out. After everyone has arrived and has had a few appetizers and we sit down at the table.

I usually have little hearts next to the gift box at each place on the table. The hearts each have silly characteristics on them. Everyone has to "act" them out without telling others what their "thing" is. Some of the things we have done are :
*you have a different laugh everytime you laugh
* you think you are Elvis
*you are obsessed with Pink and want to talk about PINK,
* each time you hear anyone mention PINK you break out in song
You could do ANYTHING!!! It really does end up being funny.

After dinner, we eat dessert on the couch and watch a few love scences. This year we watched clips from Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, Pride and Predjudice, Walk the Line and The Jerk. It is really a fun party.

This year our menu was:
Ginger Glazed Chicken Bites
Baked Camembre in Phyllo dough

Velvety Asparagas Soup
Goat Cheese Salad
Scallops in a creamy chive sauce
Mini heart shaped chocolate cheese cakes for dessert.

I will try to be better and take more pictures next time!!!

As for our family valentines....we do the cuting and pasting and folding just like you. I am still working on the documenting part of being an official"blogger" In my furry to make it a cute, fun and memorable activity I forget to take the pictures!!! Then I think AWW MANNNN that would have been good on the blog...BUT Tammie, Cindy, Amie, Brandi and Kelli are inspiring me with their take on life and how to share it!!! I aspire to be more like YOU!!!

Here is One thing you may not do is decorate your toilet paper!!! In Japan I found decorative toilet paper. So we even have happy v-day hineys at our house!! tee hee!!