Valentines!

Ahh, Valentines. The day of loooove. You can almost hear Barry Manilow in the distance. :)

I decided I wanted to have some fun and throw a couple's Valentine's party!

Here is the invite. Trying to give it an old fashioned, love letter feel.

I wanted to hand deliver each invitation with a single rose.

But I was swamped and behind as usual. Soooo, knowing we were leaving town the next day and really wanting to them to be delivered that night, I importuned Travis to do the deed. AND he took all the kids too! I felt bad asking him, but it was sooooo helpful having him do it. Upon his return, he walked in, almost stoically, handed me the leftover roses and drily said, "I hope you can appreciate how AWKWARD it was for me to hand roses to all the women in the ward. Yeah, just women. No husbands answered the door."

Ha! It really hadn't crossed my mind that that could have posed a rather uncomfortable situation. But it just makes me love him more! And in fact, at the party, all the girls laughed about how it was to have Travis show up on their doorstep with a rose for them. Brinn said she was so delighted she resisted the urge to reach over and hug him! Haha! Glad I could share the love. ;)

I wanted everyone to have a little something to take home when it was over, so I made some sugar cookies and packaged them up cute with some help from my Cricut! First time using it. Yikes, I have a LOT to learn. But it really is the coolest machine!

I didn't really decorate much, but here is a few things...

I had been wanting a Valentine's table runner, so this was the extra push I needed to get it made. Just sewed some ribbon to burlap, but I liked how it turned out!



We had Café Rio salads for dinner and I had everyone help bring the toppings. But I bought the yummy chips and tortillas from Food City in Mesa, earlier that week! Da best. 

I made molten chocolate cakes for dessert. 

I had a few active games intermixed with a few talking games.

Of course, the ping pong ball shake game had to be included... serenaded by Taylor Swift's Shake it Off! We had 3, very pregnant ladies jumping around like crazy. Thought we might induce labor that night! 

This game had to be my favorite. It was called "Tiny Dancer". Each couple had a piece of butcher paper to stand on. I'd start playing a song and everyone had to dance without stepping off. If you did, you were out. After a minute or so, I'd stop the music and everyone would fold their paper in half and we'd do it all again. It was hysterical! It wasn't such a big deal until about the third fold, then the grasping, shrieking, laughing really started! The Cashs and Jones ended up doing it piggy back style. I was really surprised how long Megan and Bron lasted. Meg's faces were my favorite! The Jones' took gold on this one!

We also played a game where each couple had a balloon that they had to pop between themselves, with no hands. Get it? Wink wink. I had a special song to serenade this game as well... "Push It" by Salt and Pepper. Hehe. We had two couples compete against each other at a time. The Shaheens were in the first group and neither couple could pop their balloon for the life of them!! We were all DYING laughing watching Bron try to squish this balloon on poor Megan who was crying laughing herself and squirming all over the place. There just aren't words! I wish I had taken video with my phone instead of just on my video camera. Come to think of it, this game might have taken the cake. My cheeks were in PAIN from laughing so hard!

 

We also played the Newlywed Game and a few other similar ones that had us guessing which facts belonged to which couple, or husband and wife answering questions, sitting back to back. Actually, that one was pretty interesting. The husband and wife sit back to back and have their own shoe in one hand and their spouses shoe in the other. I'd ask a question like, "Who spends more money", and each person would lift the shoe for who they thought answered the question. I got the idea from Marcie's groom's dinner. The truth came out on that one! Trav and I still need to have a foot race to settle who would win. ;)

 

After dessert, we ended with the White Elephant Game. I had each couple bring a love themed gift for it. After all but one gift had been opened, we had the pleasure of picking the last box. Inside was an article we had never heard of before... underwear for two! Haha! Or Fundies, I guess. Well, we HAD to try it on and model for everyone, of course! OKAY, we were so coordinated that as we tried to pull it on, we literally toppled over onto a chair, knocking it over and falling in a heap on the ground! I can't believe we didn't break the chair! We could hardly stand, we were laughing so hard. Other people had to come over and lift us back up! Oh my gosh, it was a hit for sure! Thank the Jones for being the most creative on bringing that one!



My only regret is that I forgot to take a group picture! Boo! But, thanks to the Shaheens, Kings, Hatches, Foleys, Cashs and Jones, we had a hysterical, fun filled night!

 

The next day, on actual Valentines, we started off the day cleaning the church. That led to a heart shaped pancake breakfast and cleaning out the garage! The fun never ends around here. ;) Actually, cleaning out that nasty garage was super fun for me, if I'm being honest.

We found a babysitter that night and Trav and I got to go eat Surf and Turf at Badlands. But since I look 300lbs in the picture, we will go sans photography on that one. ;)

 

Olive was the special one and got a fun outfit for the occasion.

If there is anything cuter than her cheese- it smile, I'd like to know what! 

They each got a small gift that included cotton candy. Olive wasn't a hug fan. She doesn't like it when her hands get dirty and that sticky cotton candy was definitely getting her hands dirty! So she offered up her fingers to Collin to clean.

Aunt Marcie spoiled them with fun gifts, including these botox lips!

Weston went to the cutest Valentine's party at Megan's house with his preschool group. I put together these Valentine's for him to hand out. Thank you Pinterest!

I tried for a second photo shoot before church the next day. More cheesy smiles!

Oh, did I mention they got Flipeez in their Valentine gift?

Yes.

We all flip for Flipeez.