My goodness… Our EIGHTH annual Valentine’s Day tea. Can you believe that? This little tradition started when Miss G was just a tiny little nugget and we were living in an apartment building in Kuwait surrounded by all of our closest friends and colleagues. I think back to that time when there were 5 of us first time mamas, all on leave from work, all living in the same building, all with wonderful housekeepers to help take care of our homes… How lucky were we to have our journeys as mamas start out that way? We filled our days with coffee mornings, walks along the gulf, potluck meals, and loads of conversation about motherhood, babies, marriage, life abroad, and everything in between. It was lovely. And while hosting gatherings and little events was certainly easier back then, I’m so glad we’ve kept up our Valentine’s Day tea tradition.
In my post about last year’s Valentine’s Day tea, I finished off with:
My goal for next year? To take at least one photo of our Sam and maybe get to planning our little tea earlier than a few days before the get together – hah!
Well, one out of two isn’t bad, right?! This year I DID manage to get a photo that includes our sweet Sam {albeit a bit out of focus – oy}, but did I manage to plan the tea out with time to spare? NOPE. Not even close. With Brad gone the long weekend before Valentine’s Day {the weekend we’d usually host it}, I decided there was no way I was managing 5 days of solo parenting, plus preparing for the tea, and having our house not look like a tornado had run through it. I didn’t know if we’d just skip it or do it at a later date, but after spending most of the week playing catch up, Thursday night I decided that tradition is tradition and we were going to pull it off. On Friday I grocery shopped, did some snack prep, and cleaned the house a little bit, on Saturday morning I got the house ready, and on Saturday afternoon, we hosted our tea! It was certainly a tight timeline, but I’m so glad we pulled it off.
I kept things incredibly simple this time around and set out a few big batches of our super squishy homemade chocolate play dough with some heart shaped cutters and lose parts…
Placed some fresh tulips and heart-shaped balloons around the house…
And then focused on the food, although even that was kept very simple.
Our friends brought a big platter of crackers, cheese, and fruit which was a total hit, and then we had some simple heart-shaped pb&j sammies…
A variety of our favourite Love Child Organics snacks and a few of our favourite bliss ball varieties {we did a seed / fruit free version of our chocolate cranberry pumpkin seed bliss balls, a pecan version of our date-based chocolate almond bliss balls, and a batch of our oatmeal chocolate chunk energy balls}.
We also had some root veggie chips…
Some homemade banana muffins, some not homemade multigrain croissants with butter and fruit juice sweetened strawberry jam…
And some dark chocolate dipped strawberries. Plus a fruit and veggie platter. Plus coffee. Lots and lots of coffee for us tired mamas and papas.
And that was it. I think all of the kiddos spent some time playing with the chocolate play dough, everyone got something to eat and drink, and the majority of the afternoon was spent down in the play room with the kiddos running amuck and us adults chit chatting over the mild chaos. It was great fun and I cant wait to do it all again next year. Though I WILL throw my plans together a little earlier next time (*I think I can, I think I can, I think I can*).
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