“Happy Valentine…” It’s what Lee kept saying to me yesterday when I would try to tell him Happy Birthday. He would respond with “Happy Valentine.” Never “Valentine’s Day“– no, that would be too normal. Lee is a Valentine’s baby… and, as I liked to keep reminding him yesterday, he turned 29 (and I’m still just 27 
He is such a humble man who doesn’t ever prefer to be in the spotlight, that he always is trying to deflect the attention from himself. For this reason, we couldn’t just have a birthday party for him. Instead it was a “Lee and Jason (his roommate)’s birthday/ V-Day/ Chinese New Years party.” To round out the celebrate-everything nature, I had Christmas plates and a few other random holidays thrown in there.
Our first dance was actually last year, on his birthday, at his cousins wedding. The song? Frank Sinatra’s “My Funny Valentine.” I think that makes an appropriate caption for this picture:
(I think he was a little tired of getting his picture taken… what do you think?)
Sometimes I like to pretend that I’m Martha, and I collected a few ideas from the internet and elsewhere that I just had to make happen this year.
First, I got SO inspired by these Red Velvet Cake balls by Bakerella. And let me tell you, they were a HIT!
You begin by baking a red velvet cake from the box. Let it cool and then crumble it all up in a bowl. You mix in a tub of cream cheese icing and incorporate it. I went ahead and used my fingers, which is messy, but probably the best option. Then you roll them into quarter sized balls, place on a cookie sheet and chill in the fridge for several hours. Then they look like this:
Then I melted chocolate almond bark in a bowl in the microwave and began the dipping:
Then, decorate away! I used valentine’s sprinkles, some white almond bark that I dyed pink, red hots, crushed pistachios, white sugar and these adorable pearl-like sprinkles.
I had some leftover white almond bark, so I made a few of these yummies. Take two Ritz crackers, spread peanut butter between them and then dip in chocolate– sooo yummy. I think its the sweet and salty combo- so good and easy!
After they were done, I threw some in some packages to send to my family, including these cute robot cards I made!
My sister got these cute flips:
And everybody got some of these tattoos from the dollar spot at Target, which they were instructed to apply and take a picture to send me. I especially liked my brother-in-law who had them all over his arm (thanks to his lovely wife, I’m sure).
On to the NEXT project!
It was something in the kitchen, involving these–
What could I be cooking with pink water balloons? Well, everything is better with chocolate, right?
I got this awesome idea from this cute site and couldn’t resist! Basically, you melt chocolate chips, transfer them to another bowl (that step is important, I found out after all my balloons kept popping b/c the bowl was hot!) Dip them in chocolate and set them on parchment to harden. Then comes the fun part–
And you end up with this beautiful-ness.
At the party I loaded them up with homemade whipped cream and berries.
I think she liked it.
I also made a heart-shaped cookie cake, well, because I had the pan and it felt sort of obligatory. Plus, they needed to blow out candles on something! But obviously, I do not excel in my cake decorating skills
We currently have three bouquets of flowers at our house. People love us. 
It’s wonderful.
I do have more to report, but I’d say that is sufficient Valentine eye candy for now
I do have to admit, these goblets were pretty sweet.
Okay, so my least favorite “decoration” of all? The random disgusting roaches my roommate scattered around (read: in the refrigerator, our purses, in the corner… anywhere it was bound to freak us out.)
I wish you could see Gabe’s whole costume. He was a care bear. Oh yes. And Gabe is like 6′8″ or something. He definitely won “Funniest Costume” for his efforts. I wish you could see Chiquita Banana woman behind him… she had a whole basket of fake fruit on her head! On the right is the “Bathing Beauty.”
