Love Day Dinner through the years

We love our Valentine's Day Dinner - and the menu never varies much. Very kid friendly, heart-shaped, red, or pink food. 

  This year we ate by candlelight..

 The dimmed lights not only set a loving mood, but also disguised the fact that our traditional "Cupid's Love Potion" was a strange shade of orange/green instead of pretty pink. When I reached up to get the raspberry sherbet, someone had pulled a switcheroo and put orange/lime sherbet there instead. And I didn't notice until we were home and mixing it up! It still tasted good - it just looked a little strange.

Joseph set the table and wrote love notes on everyone's napkins.

Dan and I sneaked some "love" gifts and Valentine's Day cards onto each person's plate before the meal began.

Not sure what this look was about.  Sisters . . .

Now, that's better.

The day before Valentine's Day Dan had bought me roses at our local Fred Meyer. It appears he was taken. The roses were dead by the next morning! But, the sentiment and intention was the same and we ignored their droopiness.

Why do I look so tired in this picture and most pictures these days?  Oh yes, that would be the fact that I get up at 5:20! But Dan and Bailey get up even earlier - more like 4:45.

And now, just for fun, I scrounged around and found pictures from past Valentine's Day Dinners. The first year we scrapbooked the event was 2004. I think the tradition may have started earlier, but I can't find scrapbook evidence of this.

(all our kid's birthdays are within a few weeks or months of Valentine's Day, so for the purposes of this walk through time, I am going to round their ages up.)

2004 - Brandon was almost 12, Bailey was 7, Aubrey was 4  Grandma and Grandpa Springer joined us this year.

2005 - Brandon 13, Bailey 8, Aubrey 5 (Joseph was born two weeks later)

2006 - Brandon 14, Bailey 9, Aubrey 6, Joseph 1 (Grandma and Grandpa joined us again. This was our last year in our Utah home - we moved a few months later)

2007 - First year in Washington! Brandon 15, Bailey 10, Aubrey 7, Joseph 2

2008 - Brandon 16, Bailey 11, Aubrey 8, Joseph 3

2009 - Brandon 17, Bailey 12, Aubrey 9, Joseph 4

2010 - Brandon 18, Bailey 13, Aubrey 10, Joseph 5 (Breanne and Christine Yates were visiting us)

2011- Brandon 19 (at BYU), Bailey 14, Aubrey 11, Joseph 6

2012 - Brandon 20 (on a mission), Bailey 15, Aubrey 12, Joseph 7
We broke tradition and didn't hold the dinner! Instead we attended the Broadway production of Beauty and the Beast in Portland.