Valentine Faux Pas

I made my traditional Valentine's day breakfast again this year. The food is never the same, I do whatever sounds good in the weeks leading up. Sometimes it's simple, sometimes it's more involved.

what is the same is that I use glass dishes, candles and try to be "fancy".

Valentines Breakfast 2o11 menu:

Breakfast casserole (not one of those bread ones!)

Mandarin oranges

Sausage

cranberry/pomegranate juice

Orange juice

cinnamon/sugar mini muffins

Breakfast Casserole:

20-24 oz frozen hash browns (I added some from another bag, so I did more like 32 oz)

1/4 c butter

3 c sausage, bacon, or ham, cooked (I did ham)

3 c shredded cheese (I used colby Jack)

1/2 c half and half

6 eggs (I used 8 eggs)

1/2 tsp seasoning salt

1/8 tsp pepper

Spray 9 x 13 dish with non stick cooking spray. Add has browns, brush with butter and brown in oven for 20-25 minutes. Layer sausage bacon or ham and cheese over cooked hash browns. Beat together cream, eggs, salt and pepper and pour mixture over casserole. Return to oven and bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes uncovered.

(I cooked it at 400º the first 30 minutes and then lowered it to 350º after I added the eggs)

Rachel does not like eggs and I didn't know how strong the egg flavor would be in the casserole so I made her a little one without eggs. She LOVED it, ate the whole thing, and made another one Monday after school and writing up the altered recipe for her recipe book.

I fried up sausage links, making half of them into these hearts from my favorite friend "Family fun Magazine" That's an uncooked fettucini noodle skewering the halves together and the arrow parts are made of what else? cheese!

I had an Amish friendship bread start that needed to be made up that day so I turned part of it into mini muffins.

The breakfast casserole was such a big hit it may turn into an annual thing.

I found an idea for scratch & win valentines on this blog; "Let me count the ways" They were so easy.

I made all mine for Macey's ice cream cones. The scratch off spots said "small", "medium" and "king kong". I put the sizes all in different orders on the cards and used silly little rhymes that had something to do with ice cream.

"I scream, you scream, then we make up. That's the best part"

"I scream you're the coolest kid on the block"

"You're a twist of every good thing!"

"Rose are red, violets are blue

vanilla is sweet and so are you",

and so on....

I told them all before they scratched off their heart, "this is all in fun. There is no complaining. You get what you get and if you complain or scratch off more than one, you get nothing!"

They were all good sports and made it fun. Mark and Rachel got King Kongs and the rest got medium. I'm glad nobody got the small all by themselves. That would have been sad. We went that night after Mark got home from work to get our ice cream.

My faux pas moment came in my other valentines.....

I had a little sweet for all my sweethearts.

For Rachel & Carly I had valentine Junior Mints

For Jacob, Samantha & Mason I had valentine Airheads

For Mark, I had Townhouse crackers and squeeze cheese.

Again, I had to write a silly little rhyme for each of them.

For the big girls I had written "you were MINT to be my daughter. Please be Mine for eternity"

For the little 3 I had written "I'm no airhead, I'm lucky to have you for a son/daughter. Please be mine for eternity"

For Marks, I had written "In a Townhouse or in a tent, loving you is Easy Cheesy. Please be mine for 19 more years." We had been talking some the past week about how our 19th anniversary was coming up in April and so I was thinking in terms of we had spent 19 years together already and wanted to have that much more.

He looked at his and then looked over at the kids valentines whereupon I had asked them to "be mine for eternity" and started teasing me about only wanting 19 more years with him to which Carly quipped

"Maybe 19 more years with you IS an eternity to her"

On my lunch hour I called him and said "I just called to say I love you" and he said "good, cuz we only have 18 more years!"

I don't think I'm ever going to live this down....

I did try to make it up to him that afternoon by

sending him a singing valentine.

One of the local high schools hires out their Senior choir to sing to your valentine so at 3:30 he's sitting at his desk and in walks about 8 girls in red dresses and ask for Mark. When he indicates he is indeed the man they're looking for they make a semi-circle around him and start singing "Falling for you". I came in right after they left and he was laughing and said "I don't get embarrassed but I got embarrassed!"

I would really like to have him around longer than 19 years......

I think I could handle eternity with him.

(I wonder if there are suitcases to put away in heaven....)

He makes me laugh when I'm mad

He's generally the first one to apologize after a disagreement

He makes me feel safe

He pushes me to think differently about things.

He makes me laugh.