The Day of Love

 I love Valentine's Day. It gets a bad wrap a lot of the time, but I love that we have a day set aside to remind us of the importance of telling those around us that we care about them are and appreciate them. It's more to me than a romantic holiday. It's a day of love. I think we all could be more mindful of those we love. It's important to remind them of our love. We never want to take our relationships for granted.

Ellie got to pass out valentines for the first time in her preschool class. She was so excited! Her cute teacher even helped them make their containers for their valentines. It was so fun to watch her carefully write out each of her friends' names on their card. She's still working on her letters, so a few were more difficult to read than others. She finished them all though.

We had some special visitors this Valentine's Day. Jake and Zaira came to stay with us before we all headed down to Brittany and Sean's wedding. We were beyond thrilled to spend some time with them. We have missed them like crazy since they have moved to Washington. We had some heart-shaped pizzas for dinners, and of course I had to make a cake.

This is Strawberry Dark Chocolate Truffle Cake is another cake from Cake by Courtney. It is simply divine. I'm telling you, nothing beats the strawberry frosting. I didn't have the strawberry emulsion that she used, but I did have a bag of freeze-dried strawberries. I through them in a food processor and then sifted them into the frosting. Each dark chocolate layer of cake was topped with the strawberry frosting and chopped up fresh strawberries. The entire cake was then frosted in the strawberry frosting and topped with dark chocolate ganache and chocolate covered strawberries. I love chocolate covered strawberries, so this cake was a definite win in my book!