my little valentines

no sooner did this guy get over roseola…

then he goes and picks up a congested head cold complete with ooey gooey runny nose. all. day. long.  with ramped up crankiness to match.

whew, what a day.

and even with phil away at work tonight, i still wanted to make valentine’s day special for the kiddos with a little dinner party.  albeit a very simple dinner party.  it would also be a perfect time to have them help cook since they all really enjoy doing that.  only, it never quite works out to have all three in the very small kitchen space with me, so i decided to put each one “in charge” of one part of the meal.  it worked fabulously.

allie was in charge of making brownies for dessert.  i have no idea what came over me, but i threw caution to the wind and even let her crack the eggs all by herself.

she did it perfectly.

except for the final maneuver.

this is when she discovered that eggs are slimy.  she doesn’t like slimy too much.

but she recovered nicely and got right back to work.

“no jonah, you have to wait until it’s all done!”  check out that little hand on her hip.  she is definitely the ‘little mama’ of our bunch.

she did every step herself, down to pouring in the batter.

then it was mikey’s turn.  he was in charge of making spaghetti and meatballs.  his favorite.  (at this point, jonah and his fussiness demanded to be held so picture-taking had to slow way down.)

and lauren was in charge of making smoothies.

she ended up eating as much yogurt off the spoon as she put in the blender.

finally it was time to eat! 

and enjoy the fruit of their respective labors…

they were each so proud of their contribution.  it was a wonderful dinner and something i think we’ll have to do again sooner than later.

and even though my valentine had to work tonight, he still didn’t forget to pick up a little surprise for me this morning.

and that’s why he’s still the best in my book.  🙂

happy valentine’s day, friends~ sending lots of love from us to you today!