Valentines

Brad and I are not elaborate Valentiners. We usually do cards and dinner at home. With Brad normally cooking. Well Brad had class last night, so dinner was on me. Every Monday night we watch the Bachelor, so I though it would be fun to have a dinner date/cocktail party(grape juice)/rose ceremony while we watched the Bachelor(BTW I'm loving the DVR). This was all a surprise to Brad. So I spent the day getting all my supplies ready, thanks Lindley for the help. I assembled the dinner early, to make things easier. Thank goodness I did! I'm pretty sure that everything that could have gone wrong did. It started with loosing Raelee's shoe at Walmart. Then the cooking disasters started. First I heated up a pan with a tad of oil to cook the chicken. Well, I forgot that the chicken was frozen, and I had already taken it out of the bag. So I'm trying to defrost the chicken under the hot water, now that I'm typing this I'm wondering why I didn't just use the microwave. Anyway, the pan started smoking, filled the house up with smoke and set off the smoke detectors! Lindley and I had to open all the windows. So the chicken was still frozen, so I decided to put it in a pot of boiling water to defrost it. I started the water boiling, I dropped in the chicken and walked into the dining room where Lindley was making valentines. Of course, the pot boils over, like WAAAYYY over. The whole underside of the stove was full of water. I was scared to use the stove until I could clean up the water, but I had to wait for the stove to cool down first. Of course, there might have been a few burned fingers in this process. So finally the chicken's defrosted, I chopped it up and put it in the pan to cook, when Lindley pointed out that I hadn't clean the smokey, burned oil out of the pan first. Oops! At this point, I didn't care what dinner tasted like, I just wanted it done! I was making chicken divan btw. In the fridge it went to be cooked later. Moving onto dessert. I was making chocolate pudding, easy peasy, so I thought. In fact, this whole dinner was supposed to be easy and stress free! Go to wisk the pudding, and no wisk to be found. So I tried using a fork, 10 mins later, the pudding was still liquid, so I finally got out the mixer, which worked, it just made a mess. So everything's ready, just needs to be put in the oven and assemble around 9pm when Brad would be on his way home. I did the night routine with Raelee, put her to sleep around 7:30pm, then showered and dressed. I was just starting on my hair and makeup, when Brad called to say he got out of class early and was on his way home. Yikes! So I was rushing around, putting everything in the oven, and setting up the coffee table and lighting candles, and sprinkling rose petals outside, AND doing my hair and makeup during Brad's 30 min. drive home. I didn't make it. I called and had him wait at Walmart until everything was ready. In the end, everything looked and tasted great, and it was fun watching the bachelor all dressed up in our fancy living room. Phew! I'm glad next year Brad will be back in charge.

 the living room and porch

 dinner

Raelee with her valentine balloon from grandma and grandpa