My little Valentine

I had so much fun getting ready for Valentine's Day yesterday. I usually don't really care a ton about this holiday, but i for some reason i was feeling extra festive and i (of course) wanted to take advantage of a good excuse to get Ashlyn all dolled up.

We started the day off with an 8 week photo shoot in her room. I'll post pictures soon - but thank god for her shaggy pink rug. It was an excellent backdrop for the Valentines Day theme

After the photo shoot we went to the grocery store.

My car seat is awesome as far as safety ratings and cuteness are concerned....however it does not fit into the top of a grocery cart (safely) which totally sucks. Instead, i buy fewer groceries and Ashlyn gets to fill up the rest of the cart. This is very inconvenient, but i have my fingers crossed that it will somehow lead to me losing some weight... less groceries=less eating. If it works i'm sending Maxi Cosi a thank you card for sucking with their design.

p.s. - we kind of match. two red cardis. That wasn't an accident. wow katie - really?

Moving right along..... After shopping we went home and set a very pretty table for the romantic dinner with dad. I waited on all the cooking until Pat got home. He was a huge help and it was way more fun to get everything ready together.

I didn't set the table in our dining room because it is kind of "exposed" when the lights are on at night. Not like we were going to "do it" in there or anything, but i do have some nosey neighbors that have been known to report what they watch us doing inside of our house....so lights on at night was a little too voyeuristic for my idea of a nice private V-Day dinner. i opted for the dinner table in the back of the house instead

For the record there are few things that bring me greater joy than finding an excuse to pull out all my wedding presents. My monogrammed ice bucket.....the china.....my crystal champagne flutes...shiny chargers.....ummmm i die. SO anyways.. here is the before (above) and the after (below)

For dinner we had filet mignon with sauteed mushrooms and lemon garlic shrimp on the side. We had a party catered at the house the night before so, for sides, i also reheated some delish eggplant tarts and spicy stuffed peppers in the oven. I know leftovers don't sound very romantic, but hey they were beyond good and i didn't want to waste them. of course there was lots of Pink Champagne and brownie sundaes with fresh strawberries for dessert.

It's funny how everyone seemed to stay in this year for Valentines day. Obvi we did and really - i think this might have been one of my favorite valentines days yet. Something about your husband bringing home a teddy bear for his new valentine realllllly melted my heart too :)

hope you had fun ....and booooyah for 2 posts in one week. I am on a roll!!!