Valentines 2015

Happy Hearts Day

This year while perusing my feed on FB I was surprised at how many people hate Valentine's Day... like absolutely hate it... and their hatred spreads over to St. Patrick's Day, Halloween etc. One person in my ward posted about this and so many people commented with "me too!!" More people than I realize don't celebrate these other holidays, don't decorate, and don't do anything festive. This really surprised me. I just wasn't raised that way. I've mentioned this before but I come from a festive family. My mom always decorated for all of the holidays and did fun things to make them special. Valentine's Day was never about romantic love, having a boyfriend or that special someone...it was about celebrating LOVE!! All kinds of Love!! That is something that I think is definitely worth celebrating. I like celebrating and decorating for the other holidays too. I think it is a nice way to celebrate the joy of life. To step out of the mundane day to day and have some FUN!! Life gets serious and hard and stressful and I feel like we need to take every moment that we can to be JOYFUL!! So while celebrating holidays isn't always...actually almost never is...convenient, economical, and sometimes appreciated...I still do it. I never regret doing it either. I think that it is family traditions like these that bind our family together and  help us to feel loved all through our lives.

I remember as a kid each Valentine's Day my grandparents on my Mom's side would send us cute valentines with a few bucks in them. We would get heart-shaped candy boxes from my grandparents on my father's side. My mom would have special surprises for us and candy on Valentine's Day. Even after I went to college I would receive care packages from my mom full of fun things for me and my roommates for all the holidays. My grandparents that lived far away still sent me a care package with cookies, a valentine, and a few bucks. In my neighborhood growing up, all our neighbors would ding dong ditch valentines and treats on our doorstep...and we did the same to them. It was just FUN!! Life doesn't always have to be so serious, does it?

On that note...our Valentine's weeks started out with our YW fundraiser to pay for Girls Camp.

For two weeks the girls dipped and decorated pretzels and sugar cookies, packaged them, and delivered them on Valentines Day.

They turned out really cute and all our girls earned their money for camp!

We decorated around our house too...

Ailey and Bryn worked hard on their valentines for their classes, their boxes, and picking out the perfect Valentine's Day outfits. They decided what they wanted to bring for their teachers...red tulips.

I had a few more deliveries to make after dropping them off at school in the morning before I returned in the afternoon to help volunteer in two class parties. I love our elementary school so much! They do such a great job of making this day special for all of the children.

First up was the Kindergarten party...it is so nice that Bryn and Elle are in the same class. She and Bryn had a ball!!

The kindergarten had it going on with all kinds of fun activities. Bryn's teacher is in the hot pink shirt. She is wonderful.

Brynnie wanted me to make sure that I got a picture of her with this kid...a particular friend of hers if you know what I mean?!

The girls and one of their buddies. He was in our group with the girls on the field trip to Greenbluff and bonded with them and since then he isn't ever very far away. Ha ha!

Brynnie wanted a selfie with mommy

Bryn and Elle in the photo booth. The kids had such a great time with that. There were a whole bunch of props and they got to take a bunch of pictures with all of their friends. It was really cute.

Then I was off to the 5th grade party. I got there just in time to help serve up the chocolate fondue!

Ailey and her peeps. It's weird to say, but the 5th grade party was wilder than the kindergarten party. I was exhausted by the end of the day!!

All in all, it was a fun day and I am glad that I got to hang out with these three wild and crazy girlies!!

We had a four day weekend last week so the Valentine parties were all on Thursday. On Friday, Elle came over and hung out with us during the day. Our kids were thrilled that she brought with her a huge box of valentine donuts for breakfast and Papa Murphy's pizza for lunch as a Valentine's Day surprise. Thanks Kelley! :)

On actual Valentine's day Tyler and I managed to sneak away and have some time together in the morning and then we had a family dinner at our house. Reilly and the BF even opted to skip a romantic night on the town to join us. Shocker. It turned out to be a fun night...not a perfect night...but fun all the same!! You've gotta roll with the punches I've learned. Teenagers will be grumpy, kids will argue, perfection will not be achieved...so what! Laugh it off.

We had homemade custom pizzas, artichokes, strawberry jello pretzel salad, and raspberry frappe. The kids got their little valentines gifts and candy. We read our love notes (the papers that everyone writes down what they love about each other) and enjoyed the evening. Justin had never had an artichoke before so it was fun watching him learn to eat them. We are introducing him to all kinds of foods. I remember distinctly when I had my first whole artichoke at my friend Naomi's house. I loved it and never looked back! Delish.

After dinner we gathered around the old victrola for some old-fashioned fun. Well not really a victrola and not old...but it was a record player...a new and improved record player. This was one of Tyler's birthday gifts that my family chipped in for. It was the perfect gift for him as his passions are music and technology. It's pretty awesome. It has a USB port and you can hook it up to a computer and record from it. It sounds incredible. Our kids were gathered all around it marveling that music could be played off of those big black records. Haha!

My dad, knowing that Tyler was getting this for his birthday, sent a big box of his old records. It was a total 50's, 60's, and 70's flashback. You haven't lived until you've heard The Monkees and Janis Joplin on vinyl!! :) It was quite the eclectic collection of records. Tyler has been on the hunt for more old records to add to the collection. It was so much fun!!

photo by Ailey

Oh yeah!! Bryn lost her first tooth on Valentine's Day which she thought was pretty special.

Anyway...hope you all had a wonderful Valentine celebration!! Enjoy life. Celebrate a little. It's all good!!