Feelin' the Love

It's no secret that my daughter will seize any opportunity to decorate, celebrate, and party. Valentine's Day is certainly no exception. A week or two ago she took it upon herself to make some Valentine's decorations for the front windows. Just simple paper cutout hearts with "candy heart" messages such as "Be Mine" and "Text Me", this was the extent of the Valentine decor around these parts.

Then, a week ago Sunday she spied the Walgreens ad full of Valentine's goodies and spent a good, long while drooling over the wares. "Oh Mom, this Valentine's Webkinz is SOOOO cute!" and "Oh, I sure would LOVE to get a Valentine's Beanie Baby." This is her not so subtle way of dropping hints for me. She knows, or at least she thinks she knows, that if she doesn't say something then nothing will happen, but she doesn't want to be too obvious so as to elicit an out and out no from me. Earlier in the week she had made a comment about the Valentine's Day a few years ago when I had given them each a little stuffed animal with a homemade Valentine's card and how that was the BEST Valentine's ever!

Yesterday, I could tell she was feeling a little dismal, I think she could sense that I hadn't done anything and wasn't planning on doing anything for the special day. She made a comment about how Valentine's Day was such a boring holiday because all they ever do is have a party at school. I had to bite my tongue not to laugh. She is so dramatic, that one. You have to live with her to get the full effect of her drama.

Off to school they went this morning with nothing more than a "Happy Valentine's Day" and a "Don't forget to take your Valentine's" from me. While they were gone Rex, Colby and I went and got some balloons, candy and bubbles and a little something for each of them. Colby picked out mini sports balls, Rex- a hulahoop, for Owen a water gun, Gracie- her beloved Valentine's beanie baby, and for Matthew (what do you get an 11 year old boy for Valentine's Day?) a small pack of Pokemon cards. Then we arranged everything on their beds for them to discover when they got home from school.

On our way home from school Gracie was asking if we were going to do anything fun today and I said I didn't think so. She slid further into her pouting state. For some reason when we got home nobody went into their room. I was so proud of Rex for not spilling the beans because I wanted this to be an unspoiled surprise. FINALLY, after an hour or two one of them went in there and excitedly came running out. They were all so surprised and happy that it made me feel good I had actually gone to the trouble. Instantly, Gracie's mood changed and it suddenly turned into the BEST Valentine's Day ever!

She ran off to make plans for dinner. She made the flowers for the dinner table out of tissue paper and nametags for everyone's plate. Owen commented that he thought the flowers were real and this made me smile. We had heart-shaped pizza from Papa Murphy's for dinner, with pink lemonade served in Valentine's cups, of course. Luckily, Vaughn and Kindra stopped by to drop off chocolate covered strawberries and yogurt dipped pretzels for dessert (yummy!) which saved me from having to bake heart-shaped brownies. We finished off the night with family home evening (this is three whole weeks in a row)! And it was even on how we can find love in our families. We were definitely all feeling the love tonight!

(No, that's not a ghost in the middle of our picture, it's a fingerprint smudge on the camera lens.)