Valentine’s Day…ahhh, a time to celebrate LOVE and spend time with one another. No matter how you celebrate big or small, the happy sentiment of love all around on this day is endearing. Let me start this post by saying that Rooney was VERY excited to celebrate the holiday and would like to sell you some kisses:

Bryan and I’s love for each other and Valentine’s day goes back to our very beginning. How about a quick trip down memory lane…

Valentine’s Day 2011 proved to be the best Valentine’s Day I had ever had. Bryan surprised me the weekend before and pulled out an envelope that had a photo of the Boston skyline inside. He then let me know that on Valentine’s Day morning we would be flying into Boston for the night and coming home the following day. Keep in mind this was before we were even officially dating. So February 14, 2011, we flew to Boston and had the most amazing trip. He took me to Fenway Park (Go Red Sox!), we had dinner at amazing Italian restaurant, and we walked around one of the most charming cities i’d ever seen. The next day I had planned a little surprise for him. Long before we started dating Bryan told me, “just let me know when you are ready to start dating”. On the way home from our trip I pulled out a Mix CD that I made and played it. Each and every song on the CD said “I’m ready” or referenced being ready. He then asked me to be his girlfriend which lead to us becoming official.

And now to Valentine’s Day 2015: I’m just going to come right out and say it. Bryan and I used to have an addiction.

Okay, okay, so maybe it was that we were just obsessed with peanut butter and fluff sandwiches when we first started dating. This year, in celebration of our love for this combination, I came up with the a cupcake that would pay tribute. Bryan’s favorite dessert is red velvet cakes/cupcakes so I wanted to use that as the base to my cupcake. I wanted to surprise Bryan with what I call Red Velvet Peanut Butter and Fluff Cupcakes. I used two different recipes and then my own ideas to create the final cupcake. Let’s just say that my Valentine loved them – here we are two days later, and there are no more cupcakes.

For the red velvet cake part of the cupcake, I did my research and ended up using Sally’s Baking Addiction‘s Red Velvet Cupcake recipe. I found this recipe to be easy to follow and made 14 delicious cupcakes.

While the cupcakes baked and cooled, my next focus was on the peanut butter icing. The Peanut Butter Cream Cheese Icing recipe I followed was found on food.com. This icing is to DIE for if you like peanut butter.

After letting the cupcakes cool, it was time for me to add my personal touch to the cupcakes. The icing incorporated the peanut butter side of peanut butter and fluff sandwiches, so I needed to now add the fluff. I used a cupcake corer to take out the center of each cupcake and then I filled each cupcake with a generous amount of ooey gooey marshmallow fluff. After filling each cupcake I finished the cupcake by piping on the peanut butter cream cheese icing.

And there you have it! Just looking at these photos makes me wish I could go take a bite out of these right now. The cupcakes were just the start of our Valentine’s Day surprises. Bryan surprised me with a 70 minute couples massage which was just AMAZING. We both came out feeling completely relaxed. We then enjoyed a nice dinner at home because the snow kept us from going back out to our dinner reservations, and I was completely fine with that.

Now to leave you with a behind the scenes photo of what my photo shoot with the cupcake was REALLY like:

– jen xo

Quick update!

Rooney has been busy over the years perfecting his valentines for all to see ❤ Here are a few of his valentines: