Valentine's Day {As Told By My iPhone}

I upgraded my camera a few weeks ago, and the learning curve has been... a little bit steep, so bear with me as I present to you-

Valentine's Day 2014

as told by my iPhone

 

For Sunshine's February family project, she had to turn a Nesquik container into a Valentine holder for her class party. She decided she wanted "Lucy Minion" from Despicable Me 2, and I think we did a darn good job delivering. I could hardly believe it when I even found white fabric with pink polka dots in my fabric stash. Sunshine and I think our Lucy Minion turned out darn near perfect.

 

Our Valentine's celebration started on the night of the 13th, when Bruce picked up flowers and dinner on his way home from being in court all day. The girls and I each got flowers and a book (Peter Pan for me- Bruce is trying to rekindle my love of Peter Pan, which was dashed during the most recent season of Once Upon a Time, Winnie the Pooh for Beebs and Mary Poppins for Sunshine). Man Cub also gave us each a gift- heart shaped pizza and cheesy bread for the girls, orange juice for me, since I'm currently avoiding all refined sugar. Ü The girls are both so excited about their new books. I can't believe how still Beebs sits while I read Winnie the Pooh to her. She loves it. 

On Valentine's Day, Bruce cooked us all his amazing stuffed chicken for dinner and I gave out my gifts. The wee ones each got a mason jar tumbler, like the one I use every day, just smaller. The tumblers were filled with what we call "love note candy". Bruce and I each list things we love about each child on little stickers then attach them to the bottoms of small candy like Hugs and Kisses and Reese's. The kiddos love their candy and Sunshine has been carefully saving each of her wrappers so she can remember the love notes we wrote for her. I have them all saved in a Word file, but she doesn't care... it is apparent that she treasures those little notes.

I gave Bruce the same thing this year that I gave him last year- 12 monthly dates, planned and paid for. It is definitely a selfish gift. Bruce and I have never developed a habit of dating each other. We didn't date before we got married and we certainly didn't date afterwards, when we were poor, starving college students. Really, we've never made dating a priority and last Valentine's Day I decided to change that. I wrote little notes and purchased gift cards and tickets for 12 dates, one for each month of the year. Some were simple, like attending the temple together. Some were stay at home dates, like taking a "How Well Do You Know Your Spouse" quiz and watching one of our favourite movies, or making s'mores by the fire pit after the wee ones were asleep. Other dates were a little more elaborate, like a night at the shooting range (which was a  huge deal since at the time of that date, I still had severe anxiety about touching a gun, never mind shooting one). This year, I came up with 12 new date ideas, wrote new notes and restuffed the envelopes then presented it to Bruce as his gift from me. We are both really excited to work our way through the coming year with a new date for each month.