Heart Meal #4

This weekend we celebrated our fourth annual "Heart Meal".

Having our Heart Meal the first of of February is one of those traditions I admittedly, think of skipping each year. 

Yet, something keeps pulling me back in, and I decide to do it.

And I am always so glad. 

We know, or at least we hope, that it will only get more fun and meaningful the older our children get. We are pretty sure this tradition is here for good.

The menu is always relatively the same. Mostly because I can't think of anything else, and I enjoy having things the same, it gives me a way to improve on for the next year.

This year our menu consisted of homemade heart shaped pizza, with pineapple and heart shaped ham. 

We also had Jell-O jigglers, a candy bowl filled to the top with heart candy, and heart shaped ice cubes.

Next year, I think I will forgo putting food coloring in the ice. It dyed my hands {and the water} a nice red color.

If something can't be heart-shaped, then I try to make sure it is red or pink. We had   7-UP and Coke {hey, the bottle is red, right?} paired with our trusty heart glasses that have been with us from our very first Heart Meal.

The most important part of a Heart Meal, is to have fun decorations {thank you Dollar Store} and table settings.  Even though the girls are so young,  I took such pleasure in making a pretty table for my family. It's not every day I get to make our meal time special, so I tried to do everything I could to go all out.

I decided to add to our tradition this year. We each took a moment to write down and talk about what we love about each other. It was fun to hear Lyla's answers. 

She loves dad because he is smart, me because I'm cute, and Phoebe because she holds her toys.

I think we'll leave the hearts up all month, and add to them from time to time.

Wearing hearts, or red or pink is a must for our Heart Meal. It just makes the theme that much better. 

With all the red Utah shirts AJ owns, you would think the odds would have been for him to be wearing one. But no such luck.

We enjoyed sitting down together and eating our meal. Lyla absolutely adored that she got to use a heart cup. I love that she understood that this was a special dinner party.

When she came in and saw the table for the first time she was beside her self with joy as she proclaimed how "cute" and "sweet" and "fun" everything was.  That made it all worth it right there.

After dinner, it was still early so we decided to go bowling. Our local bowling alley has a great deal, where you pay six dollars per person for an hour of bowling, and that covers shoes, too.

We didn't quite last an hour, but it was a fun way to end the evening. I think it just might be a new way to celebrate our Heart Meal.

Lyla would run up, push her ball, and then flash us "two thumbs up". It was hilarious. 

For dessert we had angel food cake with strawberries and the most yummy homemade chocolate whipped topping. 

We gave the girls some cake and strawberries sans the chocolate, but after they were in bed we helped ourselves, and enjoyed every last bite.

I came up with the idea for our Heart Meal when Lyla was just a baby. I needed something productive to do and yearned for a creative outlet as I was still getting used to not working and being a stay-at-home-mom.

 I liked that it was something fun to usher in the month of love with, and hopefully end the month of January {which can be a bit dreary} on a high note.

Looking back on the years past, we can see exactly where we were in our lives. 

Whether it be us as a new family of three just figuring out how we wanted to celebrate different holidays, to sharing our meal with  friends to having a thrown-together-last-minute Heart Meal due to the stress and changes of a new baby and not having our own place; we made it happen.

It will be fun to look back every year and see how different, yet the same each meal was.

I think when we look back to this year, we'll remember how everything just felt right and content and happy.

Heart Meal 2012

Heart Meal 2011

Heart Meal 2010