{ Valentine's Day }

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A crazy amount of life has happened in the past couple of weeks, even though it seems at times like we've done little more than recover from the sickness that went through the whole family and kept us home for most of that time. I am very thankful that for the present everyone is finally healthy, with the exception of myself. I have been fighting an earache since Thursday, which came on the heels of a nasty cold. Uuugh! Can't wait for spring and the death of all these bugs!

For Valentine's Day this year I told Tim I would be perfectly happy if we combined the celebration of the day with my birthday, which is exactly a week later.  We decided to go out for dinner the weekend between.  Valentine's Day itself was a still a special day.  I decided to do a sweet little project for Tim that I had seen on Pinterest shortly before (sorry, apparently I didn't pin it, just did it).  I called it a "Passport of Love" and inside are suggestions for weekly dates to restaurants we've never tried of places we haven't gone.  He loved it!  We've already added to it.  It's fun to see how much there is to do in our area that we hadn't thought of before or maybe had, but since it wasn't written down we just haven't gotten around to it.  He woke me on Valentine's morning with a sweet card and a little box of chocolates.  That's another thing, I've suggested that he wait until the day after Valentine's Day if he's going to go all out on buying me flowers or chocolates.  Seriously, why not wait until they are 75% off?

We were all feeling pretty miserable with our colds that day, but we made the best of it.  I helped Oliver make a little craft for Tim to take to his office and I baked a chocolate cake for Tim and I to enjoy after the kids were in bed.  The thing I appreciated most about the day was that, despite the fact that I was blowing my nose every 5 minutes, eyes were watering and my nose was red and that I served leftovers for dinner, love was everywhere.  I realized just how blessed we are to be living a life where the externals don't matter so much because our hearts are right.  Our love is for every day, not just the "day of love".

The following day, Friday, my mom came up for the day and overnight.  I ran off to Winco when she arrived.  Now that I am so far along in my pregnancy my days of hauling both kids along with me are over!  Tim took a short break from work to meet me there and helped load all the groceries into my car.  So wonderful!  Later that afternoon he called me to say his boss was letting them out a little early and since it was such a beautiful day and my mom could watch the kids, did I want to meet him for dinner?  We went to a new Italian restaurant.  They only serve pizza, but they are traditionally italian so it is on the fine dining edge.  The pizzas are served uncut in the traditional style.  They were delicious!  After dinner we browsed an antique store and bought Katy Grace's very first tea set (though we'll have to wait a few years to give it to her) and came home early enough in the evening to spend time with the kids and put them to bed. 

Speaking of kids being in bed, they are both napping so I better get some work done!