Valentine's Breakfast with Friends

Every year, we host an annual Valentine's Breakfast for our friends. It started a few years ago as a way to celebrate the day of love by showing our closest friends and their kids how much they mean to us. Usually couples on Valentine's Day go out for a romantic dinner, but when you have kids and a lack of babysitters (and let's face it, going out to dinner on or even near Valentine's Day is always overly expensive!)

We wanted to come up with a way to spread the love without the stress. And truly when you have a family, Valentine's Day means so much more than just the two parents.

So, I decided to host a breakfast for the families. Told everyone to come in their pj's-the kids loved this part, some parents too (ha!) and bring their appetites.

After a huge breakfast, we always play a game. It usually involves decorated brown bags for each family that get filled with candy as they guess the correct answers.

One year it was the kids answering questions about their parents; how they met, their wedding date, did they have a honeymoon and where did they go...you get the idea. Another year I set it up Family Feud style, answering questions based on TV shows and songs that involved love.
 It's always fun to see the siblings working together to get the answer.

This year, I based the game on speed dating. I typed out a page of paper for each person with their name on top. We gathered around the table, everyone with a page face down in front of them, when I said 'go', everyone flipped the page over, read the name on top, and wrote the first thing
that came to their mind that they liked or loved about that person.
They only had 15 seconds before the pages got passed to the right-it was fast, funny and furious!
 (and yes, you had to write something on your own page because you gotta love yourself!).
At the end of this game, everyone had a page of positivity and love that they get to keep.
 

Just maybe, they'll tuck it away for a day when they are not feeling so loved or happy, read it, and be reminded that this circle of friends will always think the world of them.

Just spreading the love...

~Kris

*photos by Jack Vogelsang