Valentine's Day 2012

Valentine's Day....the day to remember love.

 Let's start at the beginning, the Friday before Valentine's Day:
Playgroup. 9 Friends. Valentine's need to be ready by Thursday night.  This year I decided to take a cue from Pinterest and make these:

The cute little sign reads: I'd be please as "punch" if you'd be my Valentine.  Super cute.  Add a CapriSun fruit punch favored drink, and you've got a hit!  My favorite part is Abby's signature.  She is in the habit of adding the 'w' because there is another Abby in her class.  I'm pretty sure that will be the case most of her life, so she may as well start now.  She signed her name to about 35 of these things and only complained once.  She really wants to be in the Perfect Name club at preschool and this was good practice.  She's almost a member.

Saturday: I spent most of the day making Ned's present.  I saw this idea on Pinterest (it's a good thing that I started using the site or we may not have had Valentine's anything this year) where you use a deck of cards and do 52 reasons why I love you.  I didn't love using the cards because they put cute pictures on the cards and the cards made a stupid background.  I used plain index cards, printed small pictures off on the printer, used stickers and a whole glue-stick.  It was really cute for a girl who isn't really cutesy or scrapbooky.  It turned out to be 50 Reasons why I love you.  Some of them were pretty clever if I do say so myself.  I wish I had taken pictures of it. I will later and post them.....maybe.  He loved it though.  While I was working on that, my mom came over and gave both girls a darling Valentine's day outfit.  They looked really cute!

Sunday: We had a Valentine dinner at my parents house.  Sadly, I have pictures from this event.  It was a good time though.

Monday: Preschool Valentine's party - which I ended up in charge of.  Thank Jill. :)
This made for a pretty busy Monday morning.  We had to have 20 Valentine's ready for this occasion plus a teacher one.  We got them ready the night before as well as what I needed to take for the party.  The teacher Valentine was from Pinterest too.  It said: Pop Pop Fiz Fiz, What a Great teacher you is!  Happy Valentine's Day! We attached it to a bottle of Coke, Ms. Jill's favorite.

At the party they decorated cookies, played Bingo and made a Valentine for their moms. That idea was from  Pinterest too.  It ended up looking like this:

How darling is this?  The little poem reads: From the bottom of my heart to the tips of my toes, I love you!  I loved them so much we made them for Grandmas and Grandpas and their daddy.  This idea turned to this:

Tuesday, Valentine's Day:  Abby went to my Grandma's house in the morning for about an our to play with my cousin's boy, Roman.  I picked her up and took her to dance class.  They had a little Valentine party with Valentine's for those kids too.  Sheesh.  **Side story here: While the girls were dancing their hearts out, Holly (my cousin, whose kid just happened to be in Abby's class, and I went to Target. Good outing until Zoey's car seat got stuck in her car.  The seat belt was so stuck.  It took a good 10 minutes to get it free.  Holly gets the credit for getting that thing un-stuck.  Also, dance class was running a whole 30 minutes behind schedule. **  Moving on, after all that dance class fun, we loaded the car and drove straight to Stansbury Park to hang out with Ainsley and her family for the day.  She is a really good friend.  She knew that I would be alone on Valentine's night and so she even invited our crazy brute to stay for dinner.  Our kids played really well together all day.  She made a yummy dinner and creme brulee for dessert.  We had a wonderful time.  Thank you!

After the kids got changed into their PJs we headed for home.  Abby talked my ear off the entire way and Zoey slept, until she randomly threw out a knock-knock joke.  She laughed uncontrollably for a minute and then fell back to sleep.  After the knock-knock joke portion of the drive Abby and I had this conversation:
Abby: Mom, dad said that you were going to get flowers and I was going to get a present.
Me: Really?  When did he tell you this? (thinking that he's said it that day on the phone)
Abby: I don't know. He said it was a secret.
Me: Okay.  But when did he tell you this?
Abby: I was in the living room coloring.
Me: Hmmmmm......

Not too long after that, Sherry called and told me that she had stopped by to drop off some presents for the girls and left them on the back porch, but that there was also a big bouquet of flowers and a box of Teddy bears for the girls.  I may or may not have sped part or all the way home after I got that phone call.  There was indeed a beautiful bouquet of flowers and Teddy bears from Ned.  He was out of town AGAIN on Valentine's Day, but he had arranged for us to have something special from him delivered.  I was really happy!  We also found some darling presents for the girls from Sherry and Grant.  Abby was over the moon for everything.

These were such a nice surprise! There was very nice card attached too.  

These soft and cuddly bears have been such a hit.  They have slept with them, and Abby insists on buckling hers into the seat belt when we drive in the car.  Oh heavens.

By the time the day was over, it was Valentine's chaos.  But as I surveyed the mess and perhaps the damage, I realized that there was no doubt me and the girls were loved.  There was actual physical evidence that people cared about us and loved us.  That is why I like this "holiday", it reminds us that we are loved.