Valentines Day

So Jenny is a bit of a holiday fan. She loves holidays and tries to get into them as much as she can. Doesn’t matter the holiday really, as long as there is some kind of theme that she can follow. Obviously it would be difficult to really do much for say, Remembrance Day… She often does crafts with the kids, sometimes trying to incorporate a teaching aspect to the craft. For instance last years thanks giving tree. She made a little tree and a bunch of paper leaves for the tree. We would write down on a leaf what we were thankful for that day and hang it on the tree. She also tries to make the days dinner special by making foods or choosing foods with colors that fit the theme of the holiday.

This year Valentines Day fell on a Sunday. Often we go over to Jen’s parents place for Sunday dinner after church. Wanting to add her touch to the meal she offered to take on the task of preparing the dinner. Since it was more than just us for dinner she went all out this year. She spent quite a bit of time planning and preparing the meal, down to little details like hart shaped ice cubes. In order for any food to qualify for the meal it either had to have some red color in it or be shaped into a heart. Our biggest problem was transporting everything to her parents place, but despite Jen’s lofty ambition it all came out quite well and it was a lot of fun.

For starters; Home-made Tomato Soup and Strawberry Spinach Salad with a Red Wine Vinegar Dressing.

Main course; Meat Loaf (heart shaped), Double Baked Potatoes (arranged in heart shapes) and Roasted Red Pepper.

Desert; Home-made Strawberry Ice Cream in a Chocolate Bowl.

To Drink; Cranberry/Gingerale with heart shaped ice cubes.

Décor; (combination of Jen and her mom) Red flowers, red vases, and a vase filled with cinnamon hearts with paper flowers in it.

And of course what would any family event be without a fabulous home video by our own in house producer/editor.

Talking Cards

So while looking for a card for my mothers birthday I came across these great cards from Blue Mountain. They technically are only available for the paying customers but you can sign up for a “free” temporary membership and try it out. The cards are really just a very basically animated character, the awesome part is that you can get them to say whatever you want them to. Just type in the words and pick one of a few voices and voila! instant talking card.

This card I sent to my mom. It was my first crack at it, but playing with punctuation a little bit you could tweek the speech a bit more.

This card I sent to Jenny for Valentines day. For those of you that don’t know I have abnormally long arms. Supposedly your arm span is supposed to be the same as your height, or close to it. I am about 5’10”ish but my arm span is more like 6’2”ish so it’s a bit of a standing joke that incorporated nicely into this card.