Valentine Celebrations

Valentine's this year was a lot of fun. The boys really got into it. We seemed to draw the Valentine's theme out all month.

We started the month off by having a Family Home Evening lesson on Love. For our activity we wrote anonymous letters to anyone in the family, placed the letters on that persons pillow. When we climbed in bed we were all delighted to find the letters and see how many we had received.

The next week for FHE we made hearts and attached them to straws. They were placed in a red tin on the kitchen counter. The rest of the month the boys have been sneaking around doing kind deeds and leaving a heart in the spot where the deed was done.

For one of our Young Women activities, the boys tagged along with me as we took the girls heart attacking people in the ward (covering someone's door with paper hearts). The boys got a real big kick out of this. They hoped so much that our house would be attacked. I of course, told them it would not.

As Young Women leaders we decided to surprise our Young Women by heart attacking them. As leaders we decided to divide and conquer, so I recruited my boys to help me. The boys once again had a blast going and heart attacking the front doors of the Young Women. At each house, one boy would stay behind to ring the door. It was hilarious to watch them dart off the porch and run as fast as they could back to the suburban. They did not want to be caught! And once again, on the way home the boys asked if our house would be attacked. So I decided for Valentine's Day to heart-attack each of my boy's door with hearts and goodies. When the boys awoke on Valentine's Day they were delighted to find the hearts, balloons and goodies.

On Valentine's Day we got a baby-sitter and went out with some friends on the town.



We went to dinner at Marakesh in Washington D.C. It was truly an amazing experience, something I have never experienced. It is a Moroccan restaurant which serves a 7 course meal, during one of the courses you are entertained by a belly dancer. The most unusually thing about this restaurant is you sit on a couch around this little round short table. The server brings out this watering can and dish. He goes around the table pouring water on each of our hands over the dish. (Basically you are washing your hands without the soap.)



Each of the seven courses are served on a large platter in which we all use our hands to eat from. No plates or silverware are provided. I actually like most of the authentic food and especially loved the company.



To top the Valentine's celebration off we had our family Valentine's dinner the Sunday after Valentine's. This year I thought it would be fun to start a tradition of doing a Fondue dinner. Something a little different and exciting for the boys to look forward to in the years to come. We started off our dinner with the traditional cheese fondue. We dipped bread and carrots into the cheese sauce. As most of you know, my boys are extremely picky eaters but to my surprised they loved the whole entire dinner. Our second course was cooking chicken in a broth fondue. Our third and finally course ended 4 hours later with our Chocolate fondue. We dipped strawberries, bananas, apples and pound cake. It was truly delicious!