The Happiness Project

You might recall that I said on Sunday that my goal for the week was to do one small thing each day to bring joy into the drab days of winter. So it only made sense that I would photograph one of these daily moments of happiness, post the photographs on my blog, and link up to The Happiness Project at Leigh vs. Laundry.

For my own personal happiness project, I hosted a Valentine's Day-themed playdate yesterday. (I know, I've said in the past that I hate the term playdate, but I use it anyway because if you can't beat 'em, join 'em.) Hosting the playdate was part of my effort to be a better friend, as I mentioned in this post.

Now, normally when I have people over, I don't do much preparation beyond basic housecleaning and procuring snacks. But I thought my guests deserved a little beauty and happiness in their lives too, so I went all-out (by my standards) and created a theme party.

I made cupcakes:

Reminiscent of the book Pinkalicious


Yeah, my playdates have wine. Unfortunately I only have three wine glasses.

And if you have wine, you have to have cheese, right?


And then I thought I'd better have something vaguely healthful, so I cut up some fruit and made it with the World's Most Awesome Fruit Dip. It's 1 part sour cream and one part marshmallow cream.

100 parts awesome!

Oh yeah, and there were some kids there, too. Now, normally I'm not that mom who sets up organized activities for playdates, but since this playdate had a wide range of kid demographics (4 boys, 2 girls, ranging in age from 13 months to 7 years), I set up a Valentine-making craft:

It was a hit! Not with my own personal kid, of course, because he just wanted to run around like a loon the whole time.

There were giant snowflakes falling gently outside my window, a soothing classical music CD playing, and the scent of Mrs. Meyer's lavender cleaner. All in all, a perfect winter tableau.