Spread the love!

Now that I am settled into the routine life of a Comfortably Married Woman With Three Kids, the significance of Valentine's Day has slid into the background. A day of love seems just a little bit silly when I get to experience the love and support of an amazing husband every single day (even if it is from afar). And I have the added daily bonus of love from the munchkins, which amounts to approximately twelve zillion hugs and kisses per day.

Despite the daily doses of love that get dished out around here, I used the holiday as an excuse to do something a little different. So we baked and decorated cookies. Love heart cookies, to be exact.

The decorating started off well enough. Each person (myself included) had a plateful of cookies to deorate, and plenty of white, pink and purple frosting with which to do the decorating.

Concentration was high at the start, frosting-laden knives poised gingerly over cookies in attempt to get it just right.

And then someone decided to lick her rather sticky hands. We'll call this someone, oh, let's call her Rhys, shall we? And once this Rhys-girl discovered that the frosting was straight sugar of the oh-so-delicious-and-pink-to-boot variety, it was all over. There was much licking - of fingers, knives, cookies, table, etc. - and they developed a blatant disregard for the appearance of the cookies. The more frosting that made it into the mouth, the better.

Jackson Pollack would have been proud of the mess they made.

My sisters (who have also apparently fallen into the realm of Married People Who Don't Really Celebrate Valentine's Day Anymore, or perhaps the more accurate realm of People Who Are In Relationships With Individuals Who Are Working On Valentine's Day) showed up halfway through the cookie decorating. They jumped into the fun...

...and were apparently so enthused that they could not keep their eyes open:

But the cookies turned out nicely, and everyone was very proud of her- or himself.

After we'd finished the cookie decorating/frosting eating, the kids were, um, rather wired. (Imagine that! Children who get ridiculously hyper after consuming far more straight sugar than can possibly be good for them!) At some point, Rhys decided she wanted to hold my niece Olivia, and much cuteness ensued.

We spent the rest of the evening making heart-shaped pizzas and chatting. Not exactly the most romantic Valentine's Day ever, but it was certainly filled with love (and frosting, lots and lots of frosting).