Valentine's on a Budget

We have a lot of big and expensive projects in the works right now so an extravagant Valentine's Day was certainly not going to be part of the equation this year! 

Now, I have always been a big fan of Valentine's Day.  There are aspects of the holiday that I don't like. I don't like how it is commercialized or how the cost of flowers skyrockets for Feb 14th.  But I do enjoy having a day where you can focus on the ones in your life that you love the most!  It is just a nice reminder day in the year to share some love!  

So, we agreed that there would be no flowers or expensive dinners and that we would keep this day simple and cheap. I think we learned a few things in the process.  By not spending money on the typical Valentine's Day gifts, we actually ended up putting more thought into the day and we both agreed that this was actually our best Valentine's Day together!  

My morning started with a fun and somewhat challenging scavenger hunt that my husband had prepared for me!  I got a lot of laughter by reflecting back on this clue throughout my day! 

For those that had no idea (like me), this would be your "drunk fighting octopus"!  

And my loot from my hunt :)

                    The kids had a fun morning too filled with some sweets for my sweets! Aren't they adorable!

                      They got to enjoy their Valentine's dessert with lunch!  They were big fans!

I had a few surprises up my sleeve too.  I am not very good at being able to pull anything over on Peter so the fact that our evening date was successfully executed was kind of a big deal for me!  After naps, I hauled the kids off to Grandma's house so that Peter and I could have an evening to ourselves!  

Since we are on a budget, I decided to do dinner at home and picked up a pizza to cook!

Who says you can't have pizza with candlelight!?!   I also lined the path to dinner with "kisses"!

His gifts were his favorite Valentine's treat - the peanut butter heart and since we designate a portion of our budget each month to support different organizations, so I purchased him a new Visiting Orphans shirt (they were doing a 50% off promotion for V-day - SCORE!)  Sidenote: You can purchase your own Visiting Orphans gear at www.visitingorphans.org

                                        And I made some yummy frosted brownies for dessert!

It really was a fun surprise and it has been a looooooong time since we have had a quiet dinner with just the two of us!

After dinner, we went to the most romantic place of all - Home Depot :)

We are in full on "dream mode" right now (hint hint hint of things to come!) and well, a trip to Home Depot to check out some ideas was perfect! Another sidenote: Home Depot is completely empty on Valentine's Day. Go figure!

This Valentine's Day was pretty darn perfect!