A Memorable Valentine's Day

This Valentine's Day was just about the nicest I've ever had. I'd like to tell you about it!

In the morning, my husband babysat so that I could go garage-saleing. I was tickled to find this vintage apron with little hearts all over it for a dollar.
It was just perfect for baking the heart-shaped chocolate chip muffins I had planned to make that day.
While M was taking her nap I made and hung out this heart shaped bird feeder out of popcorn and wire (for attracting lovebirds of course; I was hoping for a bright red cardinal to land on the heart for an amazing picture opportunity, but it hasn't happened yet!) The idea for making valentines for the birds came from Ordinary Life Magic.
I think it would make a fun tradition to string popcorn with the kids on Valentines Day while listening to Frank Sinatra love songs or some other old crooner.

After M's nap we all went on a wonderful hike at Hamilton Pool State Park. The waterfall and grotto were really beautiful! We hiked a little bit down the Pedernales River to find a picnic spot where we could eat the heart muffins and exchange Valentine's gifts.

One of the gifts from my husband was a chunk of Wensleydale cheese with cranberries! (must be exclaimed with a British accent!) That, of course, became part of the picnic.I made this scratch card for R with pen and heavy crayon.
The instructions were that he was allowed to scratch off one heart from each column, and behind each heart I had written a different gift. An advantage to this approach is that it allows me to get chocolate for cheap at the after-Valentine's Day sales!We came back from the State Park and I made heart shaped cheeseburgers. They didn't turn out so pretty; so I don't have a picture :-).

After M was tucked in bed, R and I snuggled down to watch an episode of Bonanza together (we both like that old show, and R recently found a 4 DVD set of Bonanza best-ofs at Walmart for $5) We don't usually make such a big deal about Valentine's Day, and we probably won't always in the future, but it made a nice memory and didn't really cost very much at all!