V'Day Celebrating

Valentine's Day brunch was a truly lovely affair...and made entirely by Simon.  :)  Ericka made a dinner of heart-shaped Italian paninis, but forgot to get a picture of one before they were eaten. 

Each kid got a musical card and a small gift.

Here, JDS just opened the Napolean Dynomite

card and heard the sentiment in that actor's voice.

(If you'll remember, JDS went as ND for Halloween.)

Here is JSS the moment he opened his eyes

to discover his gift was a monkey head bank filled

with nickles.  The nickles were a clue as to what

we were going to do with him tonight while JDS and

AMS were at the youth group's V'Day party.

(Chloe got a Hello, Kitty bank filled with nickles, too.)

AMS when she opened her eyes to see the 

V'Day themed "socks" or slippers (could go either way)

that we gave her.  She LOVES footwear of ANY kind!

In that regard, she's an apple that didn't fall far from her 

mother's tree!

The most hilarious moment of the morning--

when COS opened her card to an unfamiliar tune

and didn't quite "get" what was being sung 

(My Girl).  She *did* spend the rest of the day

opening and closing the card, though, loving

the music after we'd shared the words with her.

V'Day picnic COS made for herself and her beloved Daddy.

The reason for the banks/nickles...

We took JSS and COS to a nickle arcade to 

have fun for a couple of hours on V'Day night.

These next three photos are of the moment

when JSS realized he "beat" Simon in air hockey.

COS just living in the moment, loving all

this fun and sharing the love of it with everyone.

They got tickets for all the games they played 

and at the end got to trade them for some 

trinkets.  She got two rings, four bracelets and a

wee bit o' candy for her 200-something tickets.