Any Excuse For A Get-Together - Valentines 2011

We have the good fortune of having both our daughters and their families living within a few miles from our home, so we get to see them often.  Because of this locality, we are usually together on the weekends and take every opportunity to celebrate and make our time special.  This weekend, we celebrated Valentines Day and as usual provided our GBs with some small tokens of our love...they are definetly our Valentines. 

There is no day that goes by that is not enlightened by the smiles and laughter of one of our precious babies...Daughters and Son-In-Laws included.  It is such a joy to spend time with them and have the heart of our family in sync.  It is so easy to enjoy a good life when you have such sweet family to share it with. 

Of course, we took the opportunity to eat dinner....in the South, every reason is an end to a good meal.  We kept it simple with Chicken and vegetable kabobs on the grill and a big pot of Dilled Red Potatoes. 

You can't have a Valentines Day celebration without a little chocolate, so we indulged in a Chocolate Caramel cake.  Yummy. 

How did you celebrate Valentines Day this year? 

More Snow In Tennessee And A Holiday Flashback

We have snow on the ground again in Tennessee.  We have 2-3 inches and the schools are closed.  The snow started me thinking about the wonderful snow we were blessed with on Christmas Day this year.  When I started thinking about Christmas, I realized that I had not posted my post Christmas goodies from my normal after holidays buying trip.  If you are sick of Christmas, feel free to skip, but if you still like a little taste of red and green, here you go.

I found some beautiful things this year at 50-80% off....I love after Christmas shopping.  Found a beautiful white holly tablecloth from Kohls and picked up another Christmas Santa Chef as the one I found last year was claimed and being in the Christmas spirit, I gave him away.  Was lucky enough to find another on sale this year.  Snowman nesting bowls came from Cracker Barrel and the knit stockings and Elf hat are from Lowes.  Pier One had some great items at 60-70% off...I got a set of candleholders with ornaments hanging inside, a tiered Christmas Tree server, some napkins, mini gravy boats, and two cute snowmen.  Dillard's yielded the Red polka dot Christmas bowl peeking out from under the napkins and a cake knife and server set.

The Santa Chef is just so darn cute.  Last year, I thought there was a Mrs Claus with kitchen items as well, but could not find her this year.  I'll look next year and might find her. 

I bought four of the little gravy boats to use as individual serving pitches for syrups for pancake breakfasts....yum.  Hope you enjoyed my little Christmas flashback....it was fun to relive these beautiful items and share them with you.  As usual, I am astounded that we are already near mid-February.  Hope you are making each day count.