Valentine's Day

I hope everyone enjoyed their day yesterday. Here are a few pictures from our day.

Our school system banned candy from Valentine's Day  but I found these free downloads on Pinterest for Ryan and Molly. We could have jazzed them up a bit but we just didn't get to it, oh well. Molly's really "fit" her because she has a little joke or saying "Owl" always love you.


Ryan liked using the hot glue gun to glue his bugs to his cards.

Ryan's class had a Valentine's Day Party and so I made cake pops. I did get them pre-approved but one kid did say as he was taking his, "So we're NOT allowed to bring in candy but we ARE allowed have cake pops?!?!?" I said," Just be happy I got these approved for you."

Ryan checking out his cards.

After school, we were off to horseback riding. Molly started jumping today.

Dinner last night...homemade bread...

eggplant parmesan...

And this is Ryan's favorite...he would eat the whole plate if I didn't stop him.

Yesterday morning, Molly gave Chris a card she made herself on the computer with a picture of the two of them and she wrote, "I love you more than tootsie rolls!" Then she looks at me and says, "Ummm, yah...you see...I didn't make you one." And then she tells all the others to "look at all the treats DAD got us" that were sitting on the kitchen table. Really Molly?!? You think dad went out and bought you all your favorite treats? But then last night while I was making dinner, she gave me my Valentine.


Chris and I are really not big gift givers to each other. Valentine's Day in the past has been flowers and cards to each other...our anniversary is the Fourth of July and we get to spend every anniversary together as a family and again we really don't spend the money on gifts and we are both okay with that. We try to put the money towards "doing" something together rather than "having" something. 

But recently we have been at each other about something that I think many couples struggle with. As a stay at home mom, I think husbands think that there is all this time to get "everything" done and there just isn't. While I'm busy making Valentine's cards with Ryan and Molly, out shopping for their favorite treats, organizing a class party, making cake pops for the class party, going to the class party, spend two hours at horseback riding, get Timmy to basketball, then make a nice home cooked dinner for the family on Valentine's Day...the kitchen was a mess, the laundry didn't get done, my "new mail" box was filled with unread emails, the beds were unmade, and I can go on and on with my "Did Not Do Yet" list. It is an ongoing battle to try and balance the maintenance of our home and to do the things that I think enhance our home and our family. The origin of the word, maintain, means to "practice habitually," "to carry on, keep up." That's the problem with maintenance...I can't keep up, there is always laundry, there are always bed sheets that need to be changed and bathrooms to be cleaned but there will only be one fourth grade Valentine's Day Party for Ryan. And so if I have to choose between maintenance and enhancement, I will choose to enhance. 


Chris did good though this Valentine's Day. He knew I was feeling under appreciated and so even though we are not big gift people, this year I got this:

Hearts for love...
a turtle for our Kiawah trips...
and a house for making our house a home. He did good!


After he gave it to me, Ryan said, "But what about the fight?" I think it's okay for kids to see that mom and dad can disagree, have different points of view, try to explain to each other how they see things, in other words, to use the word of a ten year old, fight, but then they need to see how to get through it, see that you can listen to each other and then come to an understanding and that even people that love each other don't always agree.

I thought today would be a good day to share this enhancement.

A good friend gave this to me and it has certainly enhanced our kitchen. It's just a regular picture frame but we write on it with a dry erase marker. I've also seen Becky Higgins write about hers on her blog. I think she has one for each of her kids so that anyone in the family can write on that person's frame. We just have the one and it still serves the same purpose. Every now and then I wipe it clean and tell the kids that there is a clean board so if you can think of something to write, you now have the room. Usually there is something written by the end of the day.


If you want one, you can get it HERE.