Valetine's Day Fun for the Whole Family

Valentine's Day is upon us once again.  Seems like just yesterday I was putting away Christmas decorations!

Children love this holiday - making cards for their friends, waiting to see who sent them a Valentine, eating chocolates and cinnamon hearts...the list goes on.  And what better way to celebrate love than with a dinner the whole family can enjoy?

A tradition in our home has been to make an all 'red, white and pink' dinner.  The menu last year was beef tenderloin, pink mashed-potatoes, roasted red peppers and tomatoes.  My girls drank pink gingerale, and the grown-ups enjoyed some red wine.  Then the finale - two heart-shaped cakes, each decorated by one of my two girls.  Add some cut-out hearts to the table, some red candle holders and voila! A perfect Valentine's dinner for your whole family.

Make sure you involve your children in planning the menu by coming up with all the red, white or pink food you can think of!  You'd be surprised at how much choice there is.   And they love to help with the dinner preparation.  Kids especially enjoy changing the colour of the food.  While we mashed the potatoes, the girls added a few drops of red food colouring to make them pink! Then they coloured the water in the water jug and turned the gingerale pink too.  The cake decorating was especially fun for them, with all sorts of yummy sprinkles to add to their designs.

Another fab way to get them involved is by handing over the table decorations to their little hands.  Depending on the age of your kids, this can be as simple as placing hearts on the table.  With older kids, they can even set the whole table.  No matter what, children will feel like they've helped make the dinner extra special for their family.  And that's a whole lot of love!