Everyone likes pictures, right?

Geez, it's after dinner and I'm just now writing my blog post. I blame Weight Watchers for my tardiness. I'm not sure how it's their fault, but it's always safe to blame Weight Watchers.

Speaking of eating, I made a nice Valentine's Day dinner. As you might recall, I was making a recipe called Mock Lobster, which was chicken that was supposed to taste like lobster. It did not taste like lobster, but it was good. We all got to sit down and eat dinner together, which does not happen very often on weeknights in our house.

Plus I had this gorgeous centerpiece:

Way to set up the shot, Shannon. There are a bunch of random papers in the background. I shoved them all aside during dinner.

I got Bill some chocolate from Fannie May. The thing is, we are at a disadvantage when it comes to boxed chocolates, because we didn't grow up with Fannie May. We grew up with See's candies, so we're very familiar with the types of candies that See's makes. Now with Fannie May it's hard to know what you're getting with a particular assortment, and it's hard to know what's inside a piece of candy based on how the outside looks. Since I was only allowing myself one piece, I cut into several with a knife before I picked the one I wanted. Wasn't it nice of me to get my husband a box of candy and then cut all the pieces in half?

I feel a Forrest Gump reference coming on.

Anyway, Nathan's class actually did their party today because he only goes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Celebrating Valentine's Day on Feb. 15 kind of bothered me because of my tendency to want to compartmentalize and keep particular holiday activities where they belong. Also I was thinking maybe I could get Nathan's teachers some flowers for cheaper since it was the day after Valentine's Day, but they were still marked up from Valentine's Day and had a day longer of wilting in them.

So, I was frustrated with how much the flowers cost, until I experienced my kid's behavior this morning and decided any teacher who's willing to deal with him deserves a million dollars' worth of flowers.

Here are the arrangements I made:

I really think the Mater Valentine cards add something to the arrangements.

And here's Nathan at his class Valentine's Day party:

Little kid fruit punch mustaches!

Finally, this is a shot that's not related to Valentine's Day, but I wanted to show you my new Fiesta coffee mugs. Mostly I want to point out that these mugs are for the serious coffee drinker, because they hold 18 ounces of coffee. I originally only set out to buy one, but then Amazon was all, "Buy all 3!" and I was like, "I would like to buy all 3!" So here they are:


The official Fiesta colors are, from left to right: Plum, Scarlet, and Peacock. Which, and I found this infinitely interesting when I discovered it, are all characters from Clue: Professor Plum, Miss Scarlet, and Miss Peacock. Good thing they don't make a (Col.) Mustard color, because that sounds ugly.

Anyway, Bill feels that the Professor Plum mug should be his, because he is a professor. Then he got all mad when he saw me using it. Which seems oddly territorial, and also weird because: (1) He doesn't drink coffee, and (2) It's purple.

Just a little slice of life from my household.