Valentine’s Day. Once upon a time it meant dinner reservations, fancy clothes, flowers and chocolate covered strawberries.
Nowadays, it means classroom party hopping from school to school. Staying up late the night before finishing up goody bags for classmates. Hunting for the perfect outfit for my children while throwing some jeans and a t-shirt (is this clean? I’ll throw on a necklace and no one will see the stain) on myself before we rush out the door to school.
I wouldn’t trade any of it for a single second.
Yesterday was wild. I woke up at the crack of dawn and after my normal routine of dozing on the couch and reading my daily devotionals, followed by scheduling out the day here on Family Friendly Frugality, I was off on a Valentine’s Adventure that had me go go going until the kids were in bed later that night!
We started the day pretty typically. Breakfast was cereal for Noah and toast for Lizzie (and eggs she didn’t eat but absolutely insisted upon). They had a special surprise when they came out for breakfast though, I bought each of them a sweet stuffed Valentine’s Day puppy and had it waiting on the breakfast table for them.
Then it was time to drop off my son. We grabbed a quick picture of my kiddos in their Valentine’s Day best and then headed off (pictured above)
After dropping my son off, my daughter and I ran into HEB to grab what I needed for the special Valentine’s Day dinner I was planning for my husband that evening. I also grabbed a few last minute bags of candy to finish off the goody bags for my daughter’s class.
HEB is my go to grocery store because I can run in and purchase HEB products for a fraction of the cost of other grocery stores. The best part is, the “generic” (which you can hardly call HEB brand products generic!) HEB products are pretty consistently as good if not BETTER than their name brand competitors! I know I’m getting the best possible price and quality when I shop HEB.
We purchased:
- HEB Bagged Salad
- Ground Beef
- Ground Pork
- Tortellini
- Heavy Cream
- HEB Fresh Mozzarella balls
- Some canned tomatoes
- Chocolate Covered Strawberries (HEB makes the BEST!)
- Cake mix and fixings (eggs, frosting, decorations, etc)
- HEB Creamy Creations Ice Cream
- Candy
I only have about 40 minutes between dropping kids off, so I was glad that we were able to get in and get out of HEB within 20 minutes. We rushed home to finish up some last minute things before dropping Lizzie off.
Once I got her dropped off, I came home and sat for about 30 minutes before heading back up to Noah’s school.
Where he had Jump Rope for Heart.
As his room mom, I had to duck out early to set up his Valentine’s Day Class Party (which was an awesome success!).
When that was done I had to rush over to Lizzie’s party at her school. Thankfully hers wasn’t a big party so I just had to show up (I’m not sure I could have done more than that at this point!).
Lizzie and I got home and I started on dinner and dessert!
I made a round 8 ” cake and cut it into a heart shape. Then I decorated it with frosting, and some decorating frosting I got at HEB.
We ran to pick Noah up and I started on the meat sauce for dinner and the meatballs (they are stuffed with mozzarella balls. They are ridiculous. Recipes for the meat sauce and the meatballs will be going up within the next week or two!).
My husband came home with flowers, a new charm for my Pandora bracelet and some treats for the kiddos.
When we finally sat down to eat dinner, my heart was so full. It was such a fabulous day!
I want to thank HEB for helping me get my present to my family on the table. It was a mixture of from scratch foods and quick prepared items that made the dinner feasible on such a busy day and that’s why I just love HEB! Whether you want to make it for scratch, or you want to just heat and eat…they have it!
We had a fabulous day!
What did you do for Valentine’s Day? Comment below and let us know!
Disclaimer: HEB provided me with a $50 gift card. All opinions are my own. We love HEB!
