Love Fest

 I was lucky enough to be surrounded by all this love for most of February.  We had a heart attack session one Sunday afternoon and plastered the hearts all over the cupboards.  Everybody wrote down what they loved about everyone else in the family.  I'm fairly certain that this will be a new Valentine's tradition.

 We had our usual little family party for the big day.  Yes, R is wearing pajamas.  She had a pajama Valentine party at preschool.  What's the point, really, of making her get dressed once she gets home from school?

 These chocolate roses had the distinction of being the worst chocolate I have ever had.  Something I remarked on as we were sitting around eating them.  My kids thought I was being rude.  But I reminded them that since I had purchased them, it was ok for me to share my honest feelings about their quality.  Which helped them to feel free to agree that they were, indeed, the worst chocolate any of us had ever had.  But they will at least be remembered.

 My littlest valentine had fun delivering balloon bouquets in the backyard.  Then J and R came along and set two of them free.  On accident.  We had some serious drama because of that.  And the balloons just didn't make such a great bouquet after that, but they were fun to play with until they deflated, got stabbed and thrown away.  Such an ugly fate.

I bought the flowers, too.  And while they were not the worst flowers I've seen, they certainly didn't last very long.  They weren't quite "magic roses" like they told me at the store.  But their stripes did look cool.

And with all my photo obsessions, I failed to make one of my kids take a shot of me with my true valentine.  Who didn't buy me flowers.  Or chocolate.  But who gave me the gift of music.  Really, he gave me some cd's, which I love.  Not mainstream Valentine gifts, I suppose.  But he's not a mainstream kind of guy.  He's an extraordinary one.  And I am so lucky to be his girl.

And maybe I'm not all that mainstream either, since I bought him a fishing license for Valentines Day.  According to him, that moves me way up on the list of cool wives.  And I'm totally cool with that.