Valentines extravaganza

Holidays always have a way of sneaking up on me and this Valentines Day was no different. As the procrastinator that I am, I usually am thinking about what we will do to celebrate the day before. So in classic fashion, I was on pinterest the night before coming up with a few treats to make, little gifts to give, and a couple crafts to do with Maeve. I knew she'd eat it all up because since I hate messes, I have a hard time doing crafty stuff on a super regular basis with her and so it'd be special. Not to mention, she loves baking right now - she is alllllways ready to help. It's both cute and slightly annoying (bless her heart) how often I hear "I wanna help! Mommy I wanna help! I can help!" Anyway, I went to bed excited for the fun, out of the ordinary day we'd be waking up to in the morning. I am not a morning person, so pretty rare for me to think about waking up the next morning and being happy about that thought. 😂😂

Morning came and I had decided to make some donuts myself. Bakeries don't normally offer non dairy options and I'm still off dairy for Rowan. I've learned we are both just better off for it if I steer clear, since when I do have it he is crankier, throws up more, and doesn't sleep as well 👉 makes my life harder 👉 just isn't worth it. I only put him through the misery every so often if there is a good reason for it and then I'm at least mentally prepared for it. The good news is thanks to this little bump in the road, I've discovered plenty of amazing vegan recipes/desserts and so it ain't all bad. Silver lining people! Anywho, back on track, the donut maple frosting recipe called for maple extract and maple syrup. I thought surely the maple extract wasn't totally necessary since the syrup would give it the maple flavor. Wrong. Donuts were ready out of the oven and the frosting only tasted like powdered sugar, no matter how much more maple syrup I added. I wasn't about to drag the kids out at that point to get some maple extract so I could enjoy the donuts how intended so I had to bag it and find a different frosting. I settled on just a normal glaze and in the end, they turned out fine. Witness:

Nevertheless, more time was wasted and with the fun plans we just HAD to make happen because the day was supposed to be nothing but FUN, I found myself already feeling flustered with the hiccups.

As all this was going on, the kids had their moments of being kids and driving me nuts. Poor Rowan is not even 8 months old and I found myself trying to reprimand him like I do my 2 year old. There's only one thing he does consistently that drives me crazy and it is suck on his bib while I'm trying to feed him solids. Witness:

I wish I could just relax about it, but it always makes his clothes dirty and I hate it. Did I mention I try to avoid messes like he plague? 😅 And I'm a mom, so that's funny. I know I have a problem. In case you were wondering, there is absolutely no point in reprimanding a baby because it doesn't work. Maeve was also being a stinker about putting clothes and doing her hair and all of these hiccups were just wasting more time so I was getting less and less patient. Ironically, on a day of celebrating love, where I should have been loving them extra, I found myself getting mad at them. Poor kiddos.

Anyway, moral of the story here is that in the end, despite the less than desirable speed at which everything got done, every recipe got made and both crafts checked off the list. We had donuts, ran errands, put together some little gifts, did a heart craft with paint, made heart sensory jars with glitter (supposed to be glitter hearts but they were sold out everywhere), and made chocolate covered strawberries and homemade reeses hearts (thank you Trader Joe's dairy free chocolate chips 🙆‍♀️🙇‍♀️)! We had Chinese food for dinner and ended the night relaxing in bed with bubbly.

Glitter jar! 

She loved it

Helping with the chocolate covered strawberries

That smile! 😍 She was so proud of her work

Our spread! 

I think of all the things we did and even though I wasn't completely happy through all of it, it really was a fun day. The lesson I learned is that it is my choice to get annoyed or still be happy through the hiccups and with children, they are going to come! I might as well expect the slow downs so that I'm better able to just roll with it!! After all, happy mom 👉 happy kids 👉 happy life! These little Valentines make it all worth it.