Valentine Exchange 2013

I'm a little late recording this year's Valentine Exchange but here it is anyway.  We had so much fun.  We each made 15 things to exchange and brought something tasty to share as well.  Too bad I only had vegetables to eat instead of all those great looking desserts and treats.

 We had fun catching up on life.

 We enjoyed eating.

 And then, enjoyed exchanging gifts and seeing what everyone came up with this year.

 We all went home with lots of great things.  It's like Christmas in February.

Here is our fun group.

 This is what I made to exchange this year. 

 Corene, who is moving to Oklahoma soon, gave magnets with inspiring sayings on them.

 Dana made potholders and cinnamon pull apart bread.  She is an amazing baker.  Her pretzels are to die for...really they are.

 Cari made cake plates for everyone.  Each one was unique.  She just had her fourth baby the end of December and this was her first outing.  She only lives a half a block away so her husband knew where to find her.

 Lisa made the best whole wheat bread and cinnamon honey butter.  Lisa is due sometime this Spring.

 Shule made a photo album so we could put out exchange pictures in one place.  She even included a picture from a previous year to get us started.

 Sara framed some Valentine subway art for everyone.  Her baby is due in May.

 Sue made a wooden heart with a key attached.  So now we have a key to our heart.

 Becky, who is literally famous for her stain glass stars, made each of us our very own star.  She is an amazing artist.

 Jill gave everyone a ziplock bag fun of fun Valentine things for our families and also a ziplock bag full of things for someone homeless that we could keep in our cars and give away to the many homeless people we see collecting on the corners.  I thought it was very thoughtful of her.

 Brenna made Chalkboards for everyone with her dad and then drew a different design on each one.  She is holding mine.  What a very talented daughter-in-law I have.

 Here's me with mine.  And in case you wanted to know, I'm still doing the diet and exercise thing but can't seem to loose weight.  I've lost 3 pounds in ten weeks... depressing really.  My husband has been shrinking daily of course.

 Heidi made a love sign.

 And Emily made a love sign too.  You can never have enough love though can you?

Stephanie made everyone felt wreaths.  She had her family helping her cut out circles like crazy.  

This is Brenna's mom, Leslee, she made little peat pot baskets filled with a little flower arrangement.

So there you have it.  A recap of this year's exchange and gifts.  The evening went so quickly that we can hardly wait until next year.  We decided that next year you could made something for any holiday because you can have too much of a good thing.  (PS.  Thanks to my husband for taking pictures for us.  You are the best babe!)