Favorite Family Valentine’s Day Tradition

This was the first weekend in back-to-back weekends where we weren’t bundling up for a weekend of snow and sledding. We certainly weren’t over the snow, but it was nice to feel like we could get out of the house a bit, especially since we had our favorite family Valentine’s Day tradition on the agenda!

Saturday

Saturday morning began dark and early when Ryan and I couldn’t sleep in and set up our computers side-by-side on the kitchen counter to get some work done. It felt good to begin the day on a productive note, even if waking up at 5 a.m. on a Saturday isn’t the most ideal.

Once the boys were awake, we kicked off the day with homemade banana muffins, fruit and sausage for breakfast.

A while back, I received a message on Instagram telling me my whole wheat pumpkin muffin recipe works perfectly if you swap the pumpkin for bananas and I’ve been making my banana muffins using the same recipe ever since! (She also said it works great with gluten-free flour for any gluten-free friends out there!) I added white chocolate chips to half the batch and sprinkled the tops with these dye-free sprinkles the boys love so much.

Then it was time for a quick workout!

I was feeling hopeful my running might feel a little better after months of physical therapy for TFL pain but after 4 minutes on the treadmill, I was very quickly humbled and my body said, “Oh heck no, not yet.” I ended up doing 30 minutes of low impact cardio in lieu of running and followed it up with a short hip mobility YouTube video.

After a shower and breakfast 2.0 (my high protein oat bran because I cannot stop with that one lately), it was time to head off to the “big Target” as our boys say. We drove a little farther to the bigger Target in our area for one main reason: Our annual Valentine’s Day mission!

Favorite Family Valentine’s Day Tradition

When Ryan and I were dating, we would go to the Mall at Millenia in Orlando and divide up for an hour or so to buy each other our Valentine’s Day gifts before meeting up at a super-fancy restaurant (ya know, like Cheesecake Factory) to exchange them. We’ve morphed this tradition into a family-friendly one and now divide up into teams with the boys as they shop for something special for their brothers.

(Sweater: Amazon / Jeans: FRAME — code PBFINGERS15 saves 15% / Sneakers: adidas) 

They LOVE this tradition so much and I mean it when I say it’s one of their favorite days of the whole year. We set a budget and then divide up at Target to shop secretively! Keeping our finds secret is one of the best parts because the boys get the biggest kick out of trying to evade each other in the store. Teams this year were me and Chase on one team and Ryan, Rhett and Ryder on another. (Ryder and Chase grabbed sunglasses this year as a “disguise.”)

There’s a lot of loud-whispering, sneaking around and ducking out of eyesight that adds to the fun.

Once we made it back home and their surprises were wrapped, the boys exchanged their gifts. (Target had a buy one, get one 50% off toy deal going on so their $20 budget stretched a little farther.)

Rhett and Ryder selected cotton candy and a dinosaur egg toy you inject with “primal DNA” to make it hatch for Chase and he thought it was awesome. For Ryder, Chase selected a Mini PacMan arcade game (big hit!) and for Rhett, he picked a Peaceable Kingdom collaborative game (Rhett looooves these games) called Count Your Chickens. We’ve already played it at least 8 times (truly) so I’d say it was a big win as well!

Chase also got a two-pack of Super Wubble balls for his little brothers to share which were a huge hit. They blow up into large balls that are supposed to be similar to a thick, malleable bubble which of course morphed into a billion different games, bouncing bubble balls off each other, rolling over each other, etc.

Their Valentine surprises entertained the boys for quite a while which allowed me to get some household chores done while Ryan headed out to help our friend Ben move a couch at his new house. The boys and I also spent a little time in the kitchen together making homemade chocolate chip cookies — the more chocolate chip cookies I make, the more I’m convinced the recipe on the back of the Nestle Tollhouse bag is the best — and they served as the perfect dessert for us to dig into during family movie night that evening.

We watched Cool Runnings in honor of the Winter Olympics and I’m happy to say that’s one movie that majorly stands the test of time. We laughed a lot and the boys loved it!

Sunday

Sunday began with more Super Wubble ball madness, oat bran and church!

(Jeans: FRAME — PBFINGERS15 saves 15% / Sweater: Organic Basics / Bag: Clare V. – gifted / Booties: Amazon) 

Our Sunday afternoon passed by in a bit of  blur doing some household stuff we’ve let fall to the wayside, including taking down our exterior Christmas lights, putting away our Christmas mugs (little tear for that one), stain-treating and washing the hallway runner that Comet confused with a puppy pee pad (despite us not using pee pads at all) and doing a couple loads of laundry.

I also made a new-to-us recipe for a warm and hearty lunch!

I followed this recipe for Marry Me Chicken Pasta but swapped grated zucchini in for the spinach because that’s what we had on hand. We liked it but I couldn’t help but think I’d personally enjoy the recipe more with ground beef versus the chicken, though I know the chicken is kind of the point of that particular recipe.

After lunch and household to-dos, we leashed up Pepper and Comet and went to some nearby trails for some exercise for the dogs and some dirt bike riding for the kids.

We may have unlocked a vizsla hack with this one because Comet was in heaven sprinting after the boys on their dirt bikes and took a nap the second we got home. Any other vizsla owners out there feel an odd sense of victory when you come home with your dog and they immediately go to sleep? Tiring out a vizsla is no small feat.

Eventually it was time for baths/showers all around, dinner, a little Winter Olympics + Super Bowl watching and then bedtime. I was also quite psyched to get into bed last night because I’m about 1/3 of the way through a book I just started reading — These Summer Storms — and I am thoroughly enjoying it!

As for today, I’m off to get in a workout before the boys are up for the day, so it’s time to get this Monday rockin’! I hope you all have a wonderful week!!