Makes My Valentine Monday

St. Valentine Sunday Brunch!

We celebrated the day early because we had a limited time to have some very special Valentine's Day cooks at our disposal!  See... Seminarian son, Dominic, had a doc appointment up here, and his sibs, Jon and Michelle, drove west with him for the trip home,  so we've had a delightfully unexpected full house -- and a busy schedule the last couple of days.  First we had the great pleasure and honor of having our three wonderful school Sisters, as well as their order's visiting much-beloved Reverend Mother over for dinner Saturday night.  (Which was one of the reasons the big kids were so excited to come home for the weekend!  I can't believe I didn't take any pictures of the evening!  But I was busy either cooking, or talking, or listening, so, well, ya know....)  But, then Sunday, we Davis girls were treated to our family St. Valentine's boys-cooking-for-the-girls tradition.  Everything was as yummy as ever!  And the service and company were fabulous.  What more could a mom ask?

(She could ask that the children could stay longer, I guess...  But, ah well...  Fiat.sigh.)

Anyway, here's a little taste of my sweet day:



The cooks

 

The waiters

 

 

A little of the silliness:



The heart of the meal!

                                                           Happy St. Valentine's Day!

You can find a retro post with links for the feast day right here -- and my favorite retro St. Valentine's post, here.  Plus, Catholic Icing, as always, has some lovely ideas for the day, as does Catholic Cusine.  There is one coloring page here, and another, here, at Waltzing Matilda.

Plus, here's a fun and easy idea if you have a blank wall and an image of the Blessed Mother -- our perfect Valentine.  We did this in art class at school for the lunchroom wall:

The children each made a valentine in honor of one of the titles of Our Lady, as they're found in the Litany of the Blessed Mother.  The cards are simple and one-sided, made with contruction paper hearts and pink, red, and white doilies, lightly rubbed with pastel chalk (Which makes for a cool effect!  Thanks, Sr. Corinne Marie for that idea!) The quote that we chose for beneath the print of our Valentine is:

If you put all the love of all the mothers into one heart

it still would not equal the love of the Heart of Mary for her children.

-- St. Louis de Montfort

Run over to Cheryl's for more sweetheart Makes My Monday posts!