Valentines fun

Our Christmas tree is still up in our living room.  I took off the Christmas ornaments and then put on winter themed ones.

In February,  I put away  the winter themed ones and put hearts on the tree.  

Who knows,  I may switch it to Easter things come March but I may pack it all away.  

For now,  it’s a fun decoration.  I especially enjoy the twinkle lights in the evening.  
there are a few Valentine decorations on our mantel.  The valentines pillows are just zippered covers that are very easy to change.  

Years ago,  we homeschooled for 2 years.  Our children enjoyed it and really benefited from it,  What they missed most about school was the themed parties.  

So we had our own Valentines party that first year of homeschool.  We all made a valentine box,  just like school,  and then we put little treats in everyone’s box.  

My children are all creative and so are their children.  

Before we opened our boxes at this year’s party,  we decorated gingerbread houses in Valentine themes.  

I bought the kits at Walmart- 90% off - and  I assembled them with a hot glue gun before the party.  

Below are our boxes.  
I wasn’t kidding when I said my children are creative.  My daughter bakes so she made her box like an oven.  

Her husband is a sports fan and his looks an Olympic curling arena.  
The green is a Minecraft creature,  a Minion and a very festive dragon.  

Decorating the houses was fun - sorry no faces but some of our family members have privacy concerns- 

There were 9 of at this party.  After the sweet fun,  we had a taco bar from Fuzzy’s.  

I sent some gel window stickers to our granddaughter in Indiana.  She really likes rearranging them on their dining room windows.  

Look at all their ⛄️ ❄️ ❄️! 

grandparent tip- window gels are fun and very easy to mail if you want to send a gift 

links to two different parties we had in the past

https://ifyoudostuff.blogspot.com/2020/02/valentines-gingerbread-house-party.html

https://ifyoudostuff.blogspot.com/2015/02/happy-valentines-day-2015.html

Valentines party are fun!  It’s not too late for you to plan one for your family.  ❤️

❤️ Rhonda ❤️

meals and valentines

as I started writing this post, it got very photo-heavy. So it will mostly be about meals and I’ll do a valentine post hopefully  tomorrow

We had a lot of snow toward the end of January.

I also got my final Kroger delivery as they will no longer be doing deliveries in my state.  I ordered a good bit on this final delivery and I’m not sure what I’m going to do about groceries. I really do not like shopping in the store anymore.

 Below are the meals we had this week- nothing remarkable but we enjoyed all of them.

On Sunday, we had some boneless pork chops cooked in sauerkraut with mashed potatoes and biscuits
Monday, we had the leftover pork, kraut and potatoes. I also baked a batch of banana muffins with two very overripe bananas, and a pan of blonde brownies.  Only my husband and I ate the meal, but my daughter and two grandchildren stopped over that afternoon and they were very happy to eat fresh muffins and brownies.  It was nice seeing them enjoy eating the baked goods.  
On Tuesday, I made a batch of coleslaw and some pickled red onions.

The onions were very simple.- thinly sliced red onion in a jar and then topped with 3/4 cup of Apple cider vinegar, a quarter cup of water, a tablespoon of sugar, salt and black pepper that had been boiled together 
I also peeled and cut up two large sweet potatoes and intended to cook salmon patties that night.  

But I had a few errands to run that day and by the time I got home, I didn’t want to even  cook simple salmon patties
So Wednesday we took a little ham steak from the freezer, baked a few biscuits, and served it with the coleslaw and onions.
Thursday,  I made a double batch of tasty lentil tacos in the slow cooker.  I have made these many times and the recipe is here on the blog

I kept out a dish and the rest went in the freezer for future meal
so we had lentil taco salads that night.  
Friday, I finally cooked the salmon patties.  I don’t like cooking them in the house just because the smell lingers so long.

This ninja cooker is a slow cooker, but it also has a braise cycle so it will work like a skillet.  The downside is it has a very short cord.

I took it to the patio and the only way I could use it at that plug without an extension cord was to set the cooker on a bucket.  

There were no children or pets roaming around. The cooker worked great and I think I will always cook salmon patties on the patio from now on
We had baked sweet potato fries with the salmon patties

My husband cooked a pork tenderloin outside. We ate it with salad.  

I’ve got a few valentine decorations up and we have had a very fun family valentine party.

I will blog about that very soon

talk with you all soon 

❤️ Rhonda