Happy Valentine's Day!

I used to hate Valentine's Day...for the same reason many people hate it.  If you don't have a Valentine, it kind of feels like a holiday that constantly slaps that reality into your face.  I remember my first valentine was when I was 14 years old.  I went to drama class that day and this boy actually got down on one knee, pulled a yellow rose out of his jacket, and asked me to be his "forever valentine."  Pretty sweet, eh?  Of course, forever only lasted like 4 months, but still!;-)  (The picture posted here is of me on that actual Valentine's Day, and the rose on the left is the rose he gave me.  I'm still shaking my head at my strange sense of fashion back in the 90's, but I guess we all are!)  I don't think anyone will deny that it feels good to have someone do something sweet and sappy for you.  I love how DH always gets Lucy something special for Valentine's Day, because no matter who may come or go in her life, her Daddy is always going to be there for her.  This morning she woke up to a red rose, a heart shaped box of chocolates (and so did, Mommy:), and a card labeled, "For Daddy's Princess."  Precious!  On the way to school, I said, "Lucy, I just love you SO so much!" and she said, "And I love Daddy SO so much!  Will you tell him that for me when you get back home?"  LOL:)

Anyway...since we know Lucy will always have a Valentine in her Daddy, I want to make sure my precious GP knows he will always have one, too:)  I never thought I would share my heart with another man, but this little mister man caused my heart to grow, and he's got every single bit of it!  Gabriel's birthmom texted me today to wish us a happy Valentine's Day, and I responded with this:

"Happy Valentine's Day to someone who has brought more love into our lives than we could ever have imagined...not just because of our son, but because of the special relationship you allow us to have with you.  We love you dearly!"

It's true that Valentine's Day is an overly commercialized holiday, but I don't think about just the candy and the cards and the chocolates and the flowers when I think of this day.  While if I am being honest, I certainly do enjoy all of those things (and have been enjoying them already today thanks to my DH:), the first thing that really comes to my mind when I think of this holiday is love.  Yes, we should show love to one another every day of the year, but I certainly don't see anything wrong with setting aside a day where we focus specifically on that action.  And this Valentine's Day, I feel that I am able to celebrate love in a whole new way because of the gift I have been given in seeing sacrificial love displayed before my own eyes through Gabriel's birthmother.  I know I say it all the time, but I will never grow tired of saying how much she means to us and how thankful we are for her, because I never want to take her act of love for granted...

I also realize how blessed I am to have my own Valentine:)  This marks DH's and my 13th Valentine's Day together...wow!  Seems so crazy to think of thirteen years ago sitting and eating little pints of bluebell ice cream with plastic spoons at the park:)  I am so blessed to have a husband who not only loves me so much, but who also shows Christ's love to me.  Many relationships have come and gone in my life, but Michael has always loved me for who I am while still challenging me to be all God desires for me to be, but not growing impatient and giving up on me during the process.  I have a better example of Christ's love for me because of the way my husband loves me, and again, I will never grow tired of saying how thankful I am for being chosen to be his wife, because I never want to take that for granted either.

We don't typically do anything too fancy for Valentine's Day, but we always observe it in some form or fashion...and today, DH observed it in a VERY fashionable way by getting me a Vera Bradley tote that I've had my eye on for quite some time!  It will be great for a smaller diaper bag, for my ipad, or for my KNITTING stuff:)  I've already got it packed up for this weekend;-)  (It's pictured here.  I'm wearing a necklace DH got for me a few Valentine's back, too.)  For DH, I found some Star Wars glasses several weeks back that I knew he would love, so I'd been saving them for Valentine's Day.  Since Valentine's Day is usually a day you buy chocolate for your special someone, I wanted to get DH something sweets-related, but since he hates chocolate (his one fault;-) I had to get a little more inventive.  We have a friend in our church who does AMAZING baked goods though, and she was able to whip up a heart shaped cookie cake with the Texas Rangers logo on it!  It turned out SUPER cute, and DH absolutely LOVES it!  (He even shared some with me:)  DH and I are also kind of following South Beach Diet though, so I decided to make the rest of his gift a little more SBD-friendly and loaded him up on some of his favorite South Beach snacks.

The only damper on the day is that my precious littlest valentine is sick:( This is his first time on antibiotics, and poor baby boy just looks miserable.  It literally has broken my mommy-heart and I just want to cry with him because I know he feels so awful.  I was supposed to go to Lucy's Valentine's Day party at school this afternoon, but he finally went down for a nap, and I just don't think it would be a good idea to wake him and take him into a classroom for of all sorts of other germs.  I have a feeling Lucy won't mind so much--she will have her mind on the party and will be excited to tell me all about it when I pick her up.  (I will admit though, I'm pretty torn on missing it.)
The picture of the glowsticks are examples of what we did for her Valentines this year.  She signed her name by herself on all twenty of them:-)  Lucy absolutely loves a glowstick (Her Nonnie used to work at Michaels and has bought them for her several times, so I think that's what started her love of them) so when I saw this idea on pinterest using glowsticks and mentioned it to her, she was ALL about it.  She was so excited about taking them to school today.  She told me yesterday, "I didn't say anything about the glowsticks to anyone today!"  (She was trying hard to hold her excitement in and let it be a surprise.)


Anyway, I had hoped to do a valentine's photo shoot of the kids together, but there hasn't been enough daylight in the day:(  (I've had piano students in the afternoons.)  I did manage to get a few shots of GP the other morning though.  The lighting isn't the best, and he was just starting to get sick, so he isn't his usual smiley self, but I still love how they turned out...

Happy Valentine's Day to you!  May your day ultimately be filled with a reminder of God's great love for you!