VALENTINES DINNER

We traditionally have a "breakfast for dinner" dinner on Valentines day with the boys and Ryan has a good discussion with the boys about their relationships with girls and how to treat girls etc. This year mom and dad sent us an Ebelskiver pan with some ebelskiver mix to add to our celebration. Ebelskivers are little round pancakes that you can fill with whatever you like. We put chocolate in some and raspberry jam in the others. The kids were in heaven! They even go to drizzle chocolate syrup on them and top with whipped cream. It was a really fun night and we had a great discussion this year. As the boys are growing up they are beginning to have more interaction with young ladies and I would even go so far as to say Caden is "seeing the light" so to speak. The other day I found a note in his backpack to a little girl (which was totally on the up and up and there was nothing inappropriate in it) but it gave us a chance to discuss writing notes and what you should and should not say etc. Ryan told the boys last night that they "should never write anything in a note that you wouldn't want the whole world to read". I thought that was great advice. He said that his Grandma (Gran) told him that when he was a boy and he has never forgotten it. We also did something else this year that was kind of fun. At the beg. of Valentines week I went to Sees Candies and bought a heart box of chocolates. Then I put them on the kitchen counter with some slips of blank paper and some pencils and told the boys that anyone could have a chocolate anytime they would like, but they had to write something they loved or thought was nice about someone else in the family on a slip of paper and fold it up and leave it in place of the chocolate that they took. (we had a two piece a day rule) After dinner and our discussion we read all the slips of paper. It was fantastic! The boys wrote some really special things about each other and Ryan slipped a few funny ones about me in the box that the boys thought were hysterical. I think this tradition is def. a keeper.