Happy Valentine's Day

Yeah, yeah, Hallmark holiday, consumerism, blah, blah... I do. Not. Care. Any opportunity to get my holiday on is alright by me. I feel a little silly decorating for non-Christmas holidays since it's just us, but what the hell? 
 

{Valentine's decorating from years past}

Side note: As soon as we add some mini Cusis to the family, I may have to be restrained. There will be holiday crafts galore! St. Patrick's Day, Flag Day, Dr. Seuss's Birthday... Apparently June 6th is National Yo-Yo Day... I mean, come on! The possibilities are endless! I may even let Tom tell them about Star Wars Day (That would be May 4th for you non-nerds, as in May the Fourth be with you... Groan. On second thought, maybe we'll skip that one.) Bottom line - as soon as we add a baby to the mix - it's gonna get real festive up in here. Babies like appreciate holidays, right?

Anyway - point is, a couple of weeks ago, I got out my clay, my heart cookie cutter, and my alphabet stamps and got to work... First I used the non-terrible conversation heart sayings. [There are a lot of terrible ones. "URA10?" Gross. "Tweet Me?" Just...no.] Then I went on to more personal ones - our wedding date, inside jokes, etc. Then I had the brilliant (according to me) idea to look for inspiration in a list of Prince song titles at which point this became a slightly more risque craft... 

The whole project took me a couple of weeks because as much as I love a good craft, I don't tend to think them all the way through, sooo many missteps. In the batch pictured above, I forgot to poke holes for the string to hang the things on. In another batch, the holes were too small and I broke a bunch of them trying to force the string through. Then there was the whole challenge of figuring out how best to paint them... So after several crafting sessions/Call the Midwife marathons (Watch it!), I ended up with forty-something pink and red hearts, which I strung on some red and white bakers twine.

 

Despite starting this project at the end of January, I only actually hung these babies up two days ago. I'm definitely going to have to work on my efficiency. We'll see how long Tom feels like celebrating...

In other news, the end of January brought some changes to Casa Cusimano... Tom is no longer at the Corporation That Shall Remain Nameless. While this has some obvious downsides, it also means that we get to enjoy a brief period of extra QT while he prepares for the next great thing. This is particularly lovely on Valentine's Day when I got to take advantage of having my man around for a cozy, indulgent breakfast. 

As I may have mentioned, I love a holiday...hence, heart(ish)-shaped pancakes.

In a rarely achieved moment of perfect timing, I am wrapping this post up as my multi-talented, super sweet husband is putting the finishing touches on lobster tail and baked oysters. I am a lucky girl...

{Had to share this angle so that everyone can have a glimpse of Herman, Tom's childhood bear, who wears Hawaiian-print short-alls and lives on his bedside table. Unrelated - is that crooked lampshade making anyone else's eye twitch?}