A Special Valentine's Day

For some reason I just love Valentine's Day!  Especially since we have a little guy to shower with love now!  I remember loving our Valentine's parties at school growing up and Kori and I always got a special treat from our Mom and Dad on Valentine's Day.  This was our last Valentine's with an only child, so I wanted to make it special for Lane.  

We spent the weeks leading up to V-Day doing some artwork.

He made heart paintings for all of the family using toilet paper rolls bent into a heart, dipped in paint and stamped.  Still sporting our Christmas jammies on a cold morning!

 

The week of Valentine's Day Lane was stylin'!  I had a few V-Day shirts for him to sport each day.

On this day we had a picnic lunch in the park!  It ended up being a little chilly, so we couldn't stay long.

 

Our handsome fella wore this shirt to his class Valentine's party, which was on Thursday the 13th.

Holding his "officers" for the letter "O" show n' tell.

We got to school and Lane was excited to go in, knowing he would be getting treats from all of his friends and getting to pass out his treats to them.  Then, the little toot cried when I left!  So unpredictable!

I was really happy with how his Valentine's cards turned out!  I had seen a picture on Pinterest of a little boy wearing giant sunglasses and decided to incorporate it into his cards this year.  

 

For his school friends, I bagged up some M&M's and a pair of red sunglasses for each kiddo.  I found the glasses for 50 cents each at Party City, created the photo design on photoshop, and just printed the bag tags at Staples.  Very similar to his Hot Wheels ones from last year, but still super cute!

 

On actual Valentine's Day, Lane started his morning with a pink bath!  He loves those bath fizzies that change the color of the water!

 

 

After getting all clean and dressed, we had our very own "Dr. Love!"  So cute!

 

Last year, we tried to beat the night time Valentine's Day crowd and meet Daddy for an early lunch downtown.  We decided to continue the tradition this year and met him at Lavaca St. Bar and Grill.

Lane, Mommy and Ellis (almost 32 wks.)

A mouth full of cookie and a hug for his old man!

 

After lunch, I took Lane to the mall to get his Valentine's Day gift.  I thought it might be fun to take him to Build a Bear to make a stuffed friend!  He had been once before in Arlington and chose a bear, and this time he chose a cute horse!  

Pumping his horsey with stuffing!  He said he wanted it to be "medium stuffed." Haha!

Giving the horse a squeeze.

Cleaning up his pony at the bath station.

He thought it was funny to scrub between his legs to clean "his crotch."  Ugh, boys!

Lane came up with an interesting name for his new friend...

Mrs. Coots Armstrong.

After some negotiating, we decided to skip an outfit for Mrs. Coots Armstrong and just buy a brush like the one he used at the tub station.  When we left, Lane said "Horses don't even really wear clothes anyway," and brushed his horse all the way home.  Let's hope she still has hair left in a month or two!

Got a house for his horse and ready to head home!

Kyle and I had just taken our trip to Chicago and had lots of alone time, so we considered that our big V-Day celebration.  Kyle did, however cook a delicious dinner for us that night at home.  Pesto pasta with sundried tomatoes, asparagus, and mozzarella cheese, plus caramel blondie brownies for dessert!  What a fun week it was!!

My Funny Valentine

Lane just makes every holiday that much more fun!  We had a great Valentine's Day this year.  We stretched it out over 2 days because we had a Valentine play date the day before and then celebrated on the actual V-Day.  

Here is the Valentine photo I took this year.  I've done one every year since L was born and I think this one is my favorite!  I was so glad I was able to get his signature in there.  He signed it on a piece of paper with a marker and I used my photo shop skills to put it on the picture.  This idea was adapted from Pinterest, but I put my own spin on it.  I think it turned out so cute!

 

I decorated my mantle with a little ribbon garland that I found at Michael's for 50% off.  I attached past Valentine pictures of our handsome guy with tiny clothespins.  Lane got lots of Valentine cards--all Dinosaurs!

I RSVP'd for a Valentine's play date through the meetup.com website I have used in the past.  It was at a girl's house who had a little girl Lane's age and we were asked to bring Valentine's to pass out.  Lane and I made these dinosaur ones using heart shaped Reece's and Crunch candies.  I just cut out the dinos on scrapbook paper and then glued the hearts on upside down.   

For Lane's school friends I made these.  I changed the saying to "I 'wheelie' like you, Valentine!" and printed the pictures at Staples.  We put a red car in each one and folded over and stapled the card to the baggie.  The back of them had Lane's name again.

I took some pictures of my guy before the play date.  I thought this shirt was so funny!  It is a $5 shirt from Walmart that I found a few months ago.  I love the bow tie and suspenders with "flair."

 

Lane and Mommy--ready for his Valentine party play date!

When we got to the hostess' house Lane went right for the toys.  This is actually the only photo I took the whole time we were there.  It was.....chaotic.  Over 20 kids RSVP'd of all ages and with all the adults, kids, and toys it was pretty crowded.  We stayed for about 30 minutes--exchanged Valentine's, ate a few snacks and got out of there!

The next day was ACTUAL Valentine's Day.  I made Lane a special breakfast of heart shaped pancakes with syrup for dipping, oranges, and pink milk with sprinkles.  

Then we met Daddy downtown for lunch at......you guessed it........Walton's!  

After lunch we ventured over to Toys R Us to buy Gage's birthday party gift for his party that weekend.  Lane had gotten $20 from Paw and $5 from Gran and he decided to spend it there.  He decided on a Little People Noah's Ark set.  He spent then afternoon playing with his new purchase!

I was so excited to get an Amazon package on my doorstep that day.  Kyle got me a new lens for my camera!!  My 50mm 1.8 had broken a couple weeks before, and I was happy to get the 1.4--a nice upgrade!   So nice, that it will double as my Valentine/Birthday gift!  I immediately took it out back and took some pics of my Heart Throb.  The lighting wasn't perfect, and these pictures are un-edited, but still cute!

 

 

 

 

Lane got a package too!  A red football from Mums!

That night, my friend Audra who lives in Austin, texted me saying she saw Lane's picture on the Austin news!  I had emailed it in the day before when I saw they were accepting Valentine pictures.  Then I had totally forgotten about it until she text me!  They actually used his picture as the promo pic on their website!  I took a screenshot of it on my phone.  I had the link, but it has since been taken down.  Lane is famous!!

I hope everyone had a wonderful day of LOVE!