Love Month Retrospect

So, Valentines Day may be long gone, but I thought I'd show some things we did!  Due to the inconvenience that the 14th fell on a Tuesday, our Valentines activities were spread out over multiple days and times, which is just fine with me!  Last year, my sweet boyfriend Tyler cooked me a wonderful dinner and served it candlelight style, took me dancing just the two of us, very romantic...and, well, my goal is to always out-do him.  Haha...okay, so I really just wanted to be nice this year, but it was lots of fun!

  First off, the Friday night before Valentines Day I decorated my apartment, bought him some little gifts, and cooked a big dinner!  Crazy enough, when I arrived home from my errands of preparation that morning, I got home to six university men in my apartment with the door wide open.  Apparently the neighbor had plumbing issues and they had to access the pipe from our side.  Always fun!  They were real nice and didn't stay much longer, however of course none of them took their shoes off at my door, and had created quite a muddy mess in my kitchen.  They vowed to mop it up...and they did mop the main problem area, but...the honest truth is, God put women in charge of housekeeping for a reason.  Men just can't do it right!  So I had to clean up...but back to the real thing.

  For our dinner, I first cooked a tasty dessert that I'm sure you've all seen on Pinterest already:  Soppapilla Cheesecake.  If you'd like the recipe, check out their blog:  Link to Soppapilla Cheesecake Recipe.

 Here's mine:  (It was quite yummy.)

  Then I cooked some simple baked chicken and baked potatoes.  We had a romantic night with lots of candlelight, and rented the new True Grit to end the night. 

  Tyler really is perfect and sweet, because he stole my stuffed dog one day (which happens to be his first present to me in our relationship).  Her name is Maggie, and she went to China with me.  Due to the air pollution and other adventures through the hectic airport, she was kind of dirty and smelly.  He sweetly stole her, and it didn't take me long to notice and drive him crazy asking where he hid her. haha  However, since the dry cleaners rejected to clean her, my sweet guy did it himself, and I must say she smells and looks MUCH better!

And here's our family portrait!

Tyler is also perfect and sweet by knowing that I'd prefer a real plant over cut flowers so that I can enjoy it much longer!  Here's my awesome plant!

My sweet creative card :)

  In all my busyness preparing for the meal, I never made Tyler a card.  We are firm believers in creativity, and that the time and creative power put into something is worth more than any kind of store bought thing.  Tyler very sweetly made me this card, but I didn't have one for him.  I felt bad since I always stress the importance of how I like handmade things and I didn't have anything handmade for him!

  Then, on actual Valentines Day, Tyler made chocolate fondue with pretzels and strawberries.  We also made coffee smoothies!

I love those coffee smoothies:  best thing for the left over coffee.

All you need for the Coffee Smoothies are to blend all these ingredients in a blender until smooth. (These measurements are rough estimates.  I rarely measure things for smoothies, but this is my educated guess.)

• 1 ice tray of left over coffee
• cooled left over coffee in the fridge or elsewhere
• 1/4 C Milk
• 3 Tbs Sugar (or to your taste)

Optional to make it better:

• Hershey's Caramel Syrup
• Hershey's Chocolate Syrup  
• A few Dove Dark Chocolate squares to make a Java Chip version.
• I also sometimes use a Frappe Mix from Starbucks as a bonding ingredient.  

 Our Valentines Picture!

  Okay, so I mentioned that I didn't make a card.  Tyler has been wanting me to make a picture for him for a while, so I figured now would be the time.  I haven't really drawn a picture besides what I did when I was an interior design major, so this is my first drawing in about four years.  I'm excited, and I've missed using my supplies and making the time to do it.  Thank you, laundry, for giving me that time. haha 

  Here is that "card" I finally made, and this is the first time I've taken step by step photos of a work.  I'm excited to have done one once again!  Total time spent on this was about 6-7 hours, it is marker and colored pencil. 

This is the inspiration picture, one of my favorites of us.

That's all for now, folks!