Valentine's Day 2009

Valentine's Day was one of thos holidays that my Mother used to love. She would make a heart shaped meat loaf, make individual heartshaped, red jello with chopped up apples, and walnuts adn sometimes mini marshmellows, and then she would serve them with a dollop of whipped cream or cool whip. She would go all out in the kitchen. She was really cute that way. She really loved the holidays.

For our Valentine's gifts she would make sure to give each of the girls in our family (there were three of us) our individual favorites from See's candy(mine was always the walnut squares and the chocolate covered divinity) and our annual pair of taudry underwear decorated with hearts. To our Mom it was not nasty, sexy or even taudry; it was just funny! I even got a pair of white panties with red hearts all over it, with a nice, hard plactic heart zipper. Too cute!! She even continued the tradition with my daughters. It got to the point where they began to expect their panties decorated with hearts and a few special candies from See's. Not to mention, that she would give heart decorated boxers to my dad and my son Daniel. Fortunately for my husband Mike she would not delve into the underwear scene for him. He would receive his little allotment of candy.

So in Memory of my Mom each year instead of going out for dinner with my husband, or a more sensual meal like steaks, I make a heart shaped meatloaf for my husband and my girls. They absolutely love it!! We serve it with a red sauce over mashed potatoes, green beans, and of course salad. At my parent's home, a day did not go by (unless my mom or dad was sick) that they did not serve a salad with each dinner. Oddly enough everyone in our family always looked forward to that salad at dinner. I think it was her homemade salad dressing that was the clincher. So now this has become the tradition with my girls. No matter what their plans are on Valentine's Day they come to the house and partake of heart shaped meatloaf. We have added a new treat instead of jello though, we serve chocolate dipped strawberries that we all make together. I guess that is the best part of the meal is that each of us makes something for this meal. Mike and I are in charge of the meatloaf, Caitlyn is in charge of the mashed potatoes, and we all make the salad together, but Autumn is the main one in charge of dipping the strawberies in chocolate. And every year as we dine we talk about the funky panites that my mom (and my girls' abuela) would give us. We talk about the good times with her and some of our most embarassing moments courtesy of my Mom. It always makes us laugh and feel warm all over like she is right there with us.