Valentine's Day

My Valentine's Day was filled with a few simple decorations, some tasty treats, and my three sweet boys.  It doesn't get much better than that!  I hope yours was just as lovely!

Have a wonderful weekend, friends!  xo

Wood You Be Mine? An Easy Wooden Valentine

Here's a cute little Valentine for all of the wood and faux bois lovers in your life.  Why yes, I did use the word lover intentionally.  It is February, you know.

To make this Valentine, you will need:

some thinly cut wood (I used birch branches from my parents' tree)
a wood burning tool (if you don't own one, a brown Sharpie or some paint would do)
a pencil

To begin, simply draw or write something lovey-dovey onto your wood with your pencil.  Carefully trace over the pencil with the wood burning tool.  Be careful, as the wood burning tool gets very hot.

Place the finished Valentine in some pretty packaging and give to someone you love.  xoxo

A Weekend Long Valentine Celebration

We decided to celebrate Valentine's Day a little early this year and make it a weekend long celebration.  This pretty much just means that Jason wanted to eat good meals all weekend long and I was happy to oblige!  We had been wanting to try some French recipes, so that became our unofficial theme for the weekend.

Sadly, the boys came down with colds.  Croupy coughs, sore throats, and fevers kept them quiet and still on the couch.  Juice with crazy straws, cozy blankets, and movies helped them feel a little better.  I missed my happy, energetic little boys!

On Saturday, I made Coq au Vin for the first time and will definitely make it again.  Anything cooked in almost a bottle of wine is amazing!

For dessert, we had Ina's white chocolate sauce with frozen berries.

We kept the boys home from church on Sunday morning and were planning on recreating our anniversary meal we had two summers ago for dinner.  The boys were running fevers and were pretty sad the entire day.  We decided to make them their own dinner and cook our dinner later in case they were cranky, as sick little boys deserve to be.  They loved pretending to eat at a restaurant and having mom and dad wait on them.

They were ready for bed by seven and we set to work making supper.  I love having Jason in the kitchen with me.

Yes, we had mashed potatoes two days in a row.  Don't worry about it.

For dessert we had a chocolate buttermilk cake with a vanilla custard filling and chocolate buttercream frosting.

We had a wonderful "Valentine's Day" and hope you do too!  Also, I don't think I'll eat for the rest of the week.

A Perfectly Imperfect Love Letter Valentine Wreath

Seeing as how Valentine's day is only four short days away, I thought I should make some kind of decoration to celebrate.  I had been seeing those cute little stitched felt hearts everywhere and was inspired.  However, I did not have any colors of felt appropriate for Valentine's day (rats) and was forced to use some paper instead.  I printed off a love letter I found on Google images written by Robert Browning to Elizabeth Barrett Browning.  Using the love letter, I cut out some hearts, stuffed them, and sewed them up.  I suppose you could use your own love letter for this, but I didn't have the heart to cut mine up!  Plus, that Mr. Browning has some pretty fancy handwriting, doesn't he?

After I had made eight or so hearts, I pinned them to my wreath form, which I also used for my fall yarn wreath.  I hung it up on my chalkboard using bakers twine.

It isn't perfect but it was easy and romantic!  Ooh la la!

I'm linking up to:

Tatertots and Jello

Valentine's Day Cookies

This cookie recipe comes from my Mom, as do most of the other cookie recipes I use and have blogged about.  I use this recipe for every season and love it because I always seem to have the five ingredients on hand. They come together quickly and easily and aren't a fussy cookie.

Here is the recipe.

Traditional Rolled Butter Cookies

1/2 pound butter (2 sticks/1 cup)

1 cup confectioners sugar

2 1/2 cups flour

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Cream the butter.  Add the sugar and mix until light and fluffy.  Add the flour in small amounts, mixing well after each addition.  Add the milk and vanilla last.  Turn out onto a board and kneed for about a half a minute.  Roll out to 1/4 inch thick.  Cut out with cookie cutters.  Bake at 325 degrees for 15-20 minutes.  Watch them closely.  They should be almost white when ready to remove from the oven.  {I almost always double this recipe}.

I typically use a butter frosting to decorate these cookies but for some reason I used a cream cheese frosting this time.  My boys loved the change, so I'll share it with you!

Cream Cheese Frosting

6 ounces softened cream cheese

1/2 cup softened butter

2 teaspoons vanilla or almond extract

4 1/2 to 4 3/4 cups confectioners sugar

Beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla until light and fluffy.  Add the sugar one cup at a time and beat well after each addition.  {This was more than enough frosting to cover the doubled cookie recipe}.

I divided the frosting in half and added a couple of drops of red food coloring to make a lovely shade of pink.  The other half I left white.  Decorate the cookies however you wish!

And so, since we're in the month of love now, I would like to thank all of my lovely readers for reading this little blog and for your sweet emails and questions.  Keep them coming!  I didn't know if I would stick with this blog thing but have found such enjoyment in it and appreciate the friends I have made.  You're all pretty terrific!

Happy February to you all!

Also, thanks Mom for baking such wonderful things for us as kids!

I'm linking up to:

Decor Chick

Some Cinnamon Rolls for Your Valentine's Day

Folks, I didn't come up with this idea.  I pinned it on Pinterest from the blog Poppies at Play and wanted to try it out for my three Valentines.  Turns out, making your cinnamon rolls look all lovey-dovey and cute is easy.  Here's what I did to make my cinnamon rolls look like hearts.

Roll out your dough and cover with your cinnamon sugar mixture.

Roll up the dough along the length until it meets in the middle.  You can roll as tight or as loose as you please.

Slice the cinnamon rolls up and place into your pan.

Bake according to your recipe.

Frost and share with the ones you love.

Well hello there, little Valentine rolls!

Have a happy weekend!

And thank you to Poppies at Play for the really cute idea!