Valentine's Re-do

MJH and I had a nice Valentine's evening. We have "stayed in" the last few years and celebrated with friends (adults only) - we do a fancy candlelit dinner with Martinelli's and a decadent dessert. You get the idea. It was requested that I host this year so I brought out the gold chargers, my nice silverware, the long stemmed glasses, etc.


I was surprised but CMH's little eyes dazzled when he got one look at the pretty table. He said with envy, "Mom, will you make a fancy table like this for us sometime?" This is a kid who is apparently learning to appreciate some of the finer things in life - who knew - an 8 year old boy would have such desires. But I realized that if I did set out the china for him that he would appreciate it.


It dawned on me that it would be much easier to just do the fancy thing today while all of the silver and glasses were still out. We also have been working on a Cub Scout requirement regarding nutrition and cooking. He still needed to pass off an achievement for setting the table, cooking a meal, and doing dishes. This would be perfect - CMH could do all of this and get his fancy dinner. Well, the table was fancy - the meal was not. But he did cook every bit of it, I just gave directions. His menu included: Frito casserole, frozen broccoli, cesar salad, red Jell-O with strawberries, and brownies from a box for dessert.


We ate this delicious Sunday dinner with candles lit and roses on the table. Thank you, My Love, for the roses! (The little pink things scattered on the table are romantic "magnetic poetry" words that the kids had fun arranging into silly sentences. On Valentine's night the adults used these and had to pick two random words to make into a two lined poem such as: Come here and SNUGGLE; you are a dandy. I love when you kiss me and bring me CANDY! That was mine.) They loved the whole thing and CMH did it all. AND nothing got broken. That being said, we came close to having AVH do a disappearing table cloth trick a couple of times - not good when there are candles on the table. I don't think they will let me go very long before I have to pull the silver out again. They do say it stays polished with use right?