Hey friends!

I hope you had a fabulous weekend whether you’re an all out hearts, flowers, and candy type of girl or a “what a ridiculous excuse to peddle more Hallmark cards!” kind of girl.

(I’m somewhere in between. I realize that Valentine’s Day is a completely manufactured holiday and therefore a bit silly, but I also love any excuse to eat yummy food, give thoughtful presents, and hang out with my man, so I look at it as a reminder to do more of that).

I had a post scheduled for this morning (which–I must point out–made me feel extremely organized and on-top-of-things given my current helter-skelter state of life with homeschooled kids, toddlers, and a newborn), but it just felt a little too glib to completely ignore the rather intense discussion that took place after Friday’s post.

I want to thank each of you for taking the time contribute to that discussion, whether we agreed or not. I read and considered each and every comment but chose to spend the weekend with my family rather than answer comments just yet. I will try to do that as soon as possible. I’m also mulling over a blog post that addresses several of the issues raised, so be on the lookout for that in the near future.

For today, I thought I’d recap our Valentine’s weekend because it was pretty fantastic and because I haven’t been doing too many, “This is life,” posts lately, and sometimes a good ol’ photo-dump is just the thing.

Just like this past Christmas was my favorite to date, I’m pretty sure this was the most enjoyable Valentine’s we’ve had yet too. And not because our others have been bad, mind you. We always enjoy good food and have a fun, relaxed time, but just overall, I feel like the fewer expectations we place on ourselves, the more fun we have. (Ain’t that always the way?).

And, when you’re doing your Valentine’s date at home with three small children, it’s easy to keep your expectations super-low.

You already know what we were going to eat as well as what I was going to give Shaun. In case you’re wondering, his gift was a hit. As soon as he saw the Bingo set, he got a mischievous glint in his eye, so I went upstairs to my closet and “prepared.” (Apparently, he knew all about that “one little word” I mentioned in that gift basket post).

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Okay, so this was just a joke, considering that this took place at approximately 5 PM, all 3 littles we had at home were awake, it was 68 degrees outside, and I was melting. But it made for a good visual gag + photo op when he came downstairs and saw me standing there, camera in hand, snapping selfies.

Of course, before we ever got to the Friday afternoon festivities (which started after I met my mom to drop off the three older kids, just like I do every Friday afternoon; the woman’s a saint!), the kids and I got to experience the joy of car carts at the grocery store.

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If you want to know what I really think about car carts, get a load of Della’s face. They cause more fights than they fix (again: Della’s face), and they’re pure misery to navigate. But the kids think they’re ah-maze-balls (except when they don’t; Della’s face, anyone?), and our local fancy grocery store (that we hardly ever visit) is the only place that has them.

So the torture ecstasy of car carts was all ours.

I felt very much like Joe Fox buying books in Kathleen Kelly’s Shop Around the Corner–complete with his incredulous, “H-h-HOW much?”–when my measly pile of specialty items rang up to over $70 (I did buy a crepe pan, so there was that too), but I swiped my card just the same, and we proceeded to bump our car carts into every corner and “VALENTINE’S SPECIAL!!!” display all the way back across the store on our way out.

When I got home from that little adventure, I discovered these waiting for me.

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I love flowers. Especially these (um, tulips and sunflowers and Gerbera daisies?…oh MY!). But I love words even more. So when my adorably geeky husband took his adorably geeky Christmas present (a label-maker) and proceeded to attach a word describing me (or, at least, me through his eyes) to each flower…well, it could have been a measly bunch of wilting weeds, and it still would have been the best. bouquet. ever.

Oh, and in case you saw this view of our kitchen on Instagram after my hubby spiffed it up for me last week…

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{Glean what you will from the fact that I showed this pic to Shaun, and he said, “Wait, that’s OUR kitchen??!”}

…well, this is what it looked like the morning after an epic evening of crepe and eclair making (and this, after we did two {!!} loads of dishes).

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Come to think of it, that’s sort of how it still looks right now (I should do something about that).

I have zero pics of the crepes, since we didn’t get done with them until 9:30 PM, and a trashed kitchen, plus ugly nighttime lighting, plus extreme hunger do not an ideal photo-op make.

Suffice it to say that they were delicious, and I’ll share more soon.

The eclairs, on the other hand, which were entirely Shaun’s doing, were photo-worthy in an epic way.

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These White Chocolate Maple Eclairs are, I think, the most decadent, gorgeous, wonderful morsels of creamy, melt-in-your-mouth goodness I’ve ever eaten. They have multiple steps, and, granted, I’m not the one who made them, but based on Shaun’s eye-rolls of ecstasy, he seemed to think they were worth the effort.

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{I mean}

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The twins were fans as well, and Theo didn’t complain about his milk later, so I think I can  safely say that we all give them many enthusiastic thumbs up.

Speaking of Theo…

 

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Pardon the grainy photo, but I just couldn’t resist snapping a pic of his cuteness as he chilled in bed with me when we were both “supposed” to be taking a Sunday afternoon nap.

He is the sweetest of the sweethearts.

And I’m not the only one who thinks so.

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This is Evy, who has morphed from being our most mischievous into our most motherly and will sit absolutely still holding Theo for 15 minutes at a time when she usually can’t go 30 seconds without wiggling all over the place.

I snapped this shot yesterday during our Sunday movie night (Pollyanna, in case you were wondering; my kids couldn’t believe they didn’t tell us whether her legs got better!)…right before Nola proceeded to upchuck every last bite of her pizza all over Shaun.

Everything in me was screaming, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I mean, really? A stomach bug to end our magical weekend of decadent food, fun, and family fellowship?? (I couldn’t ruin the alliteration, no matter how cheesy it sounds).

But, thank the Lord, it was just a fluke, apparently. She’s been happy as a lark and completely puke-free since “the incident,” and no one else has shown signs of stomach malcontent, so I think we’re in the clear for now.

Phew!
And there you have it, folks. One very yummy, very enjoyable, very repeat-worthy weekend.

How did you guys fare? Any fun tidbits to share? I’m all ears. (And growling tummy; those eclairs were so good).

3 Comments

  1. hey, Abbie! I wanna make those eclairs but I have a couple questions: a) how did you guys make the maple caramel sauce and b) did you use the orange star anise cream or a regular cream. they look sooooooooooooo good and I love making the pastry

    1. The maple caramel sauce was just Kraft caramel melts (he used those little “beads”) in a double-boiler “marinated” in pure maple syrup (he said he filled the double-boiler with maple syrup until it just covered the caramel beads).

      And for the whipped cream, he made a sauce from a cup of water, a cup of baker’s sugar, a TBS spoon of vanilla, and three orange’s worth of juice and reduced it down over heat until it’s a bit like molasses. Then he whipped the cream until it thickened, added two tbs of powdered sugar, and continued whipping while adding the (cooled) orange sauce.

      I hope you love these as much as we did. They are pretty decadent but still super-addictive. Somehow the flavors are really rich and really mild (as in, not overpowering) at the same time.

      Yum!

I love hearing from you guys!