my valentine

I love my crazy wonderful thoughtful sweet incredible husband.

I love silly "Hallmark" holidays that give us extra opportunity to celebrate and do fun things, whether it be with my lover or my kids.  It's something extra, something fun.

I found something on Pinterest (if my husband had a dollar for every time I say that...) that I duplicated for him.  Starting on February 1st, I began a silly little countdown with a small token paired with a cheesy line given each day through February 14th.  I usually hid them under his pillow or in his laptop bag.  In no particular order:

a bag of chex mix: "I'd be so MIXed up without you"
dried apples: "you're the APPLE of my eye"
chapstick: "thanks for STICKin' with me"
Mountain Dew: "what would I DEW without you?"
Swedish fish: "I oFISHally love you."
Skor and Nerds candy: "how'd I SKOR such a handsome NERD like you?"
3Musketeer candy bar: "For the amazing daddy to our 3 MUSKETEERS"
lip shaped chocolates: "I love your lips"
Reisen candies: "There are so many REASONS I love you"
PopRocks: "you ROCK my world"
gum: "I CHEWS you for forever"
...and others I can't remember at the moment.  So fun.

Husband had a work trip planned over Valentines so we celebrated early.  We declared Sunday to be our unofficial celebration day.  For breakfast I made pink, heart shaped chocolate chip pancakes and heart shaped omelets using my nifty little heart shaped pan.  Ladybug was still recovery from the tonsillectomy so it was a quiet cuddling day.  But Grandma added to it with a particularly tasty dinner.

Our menfolk left soon after and our week went on.  On Wednesday  the girls and I spent the afternoon making and signing valentines for their friends at school.  They had picked out princess valentines (shocking, I know) and set about signing their names.  My oldest settled right in, needing no instructions.  But I was quite surprised when my middle daughter, my sweet little Ladybug picked up a pen and begin writing her own name.  We've been working on individual letters but I haven't encouraged her to write her name yet.  I was so surprised and so proud at how well she wrote.  She signed all of her Valentines and set about decorating them with stickers.  (I even checked with her preschool teacher later and she was just as surprised.  It's a 2 year old program so they haven't down much writing at all.  I concluded it's from practicing letters and big sister must have showed her.)  Once signed and decorated, they slipped candy suckers into them.  Then with the few remaining valentine cards, the girls excitedly declared they wanted to give them to various friends and family members.  So we continued signing and decorating (and making this mom melt with their sweet excitement and generous spirits).  We made little envelopes and prepared the few that needed to be mailed.  We made a quick trip to the post office, had to adjust the valentines (they were originally smaller than the required size for mailing) and sent them off.

On Thursday, I woke the girls up for a special Valentine breakfast of heart-shaped eggs again.  We raced off to school parties and our usual activities.  We had a playdate with our best friends and cuddled through naptime.  That evening, Grandma prepared us an amazing steak dinner, declaring that even if the guys weren't home, we still ought to celebrate.  For extra fun, I cut the girls' food into bite sized pieces and instead of plates, I used heart shaped boxes of chocolates to serve their dinner.  (and then we ate the chocolates for dessert).  Lovely didn't get a heart shaped box for her dinner but she LOVED tasting all the chocolates.  I gave each of them a little present that I had stashed away for a special occasion: books for Ladybug, movies for Butterfly and a little stuffed pink unicorn for Lovely.  And all the while, a beautiful present from daddy sat on the table: a vase brimming with elegance, a dozen deep red roses that he arranged to be delivered for me.

Our official "date" had to wait until the next evening, after he was home from his work trip.  We had a quick dinner at home with the girls and then left them with Grandma while we went out.  We visited a frozen yogurt shop and then attended our ballroom dance class.  We danced, poked fun at ourselves, joked with the other couples, and slowly improved our cha-cha.  And then, in honor of Valentine's, class was followed by a dance. Instead of being instructional, we just danced to music, snacked on the refreshments and had fun.