our love

It's Valentine's Day, and I'm not doing very much celebrating. The kids are with Shane today, and I did some work, went to yoga at the gym, helped with a baptism at Church, and am thinking about making myself a killer grilled cheese sandwich.

But, prepping for Valentine's Day with the kids was a lot of fun this year. 

They both did Valentines for their classes at school. Wesley's were just dollar-store Valentines that we folded up to make a little 'pouch' and put in a Dove candy. Yum! He wrote out everyone's names and I was so proud of him! 

Laurel's Valentines are funny.... when we went to see my family for Dad's funeral, my Grandma Caudell and Aunt Wanda brought some presents for the kids, like a whole bunch of matchbox cars, some arts and crafts supplies, and these cool threading cards. I noticed that out of the 20 or so threading cards they had, about half of them had Valentines notes on the back. What? I took the cards and put them in a safe spot and boom, out they came for Valentines day! They were perfect for a bunch of 2 and 3 year olds.

Since they were all a little bit different, Laurel had a terrific time deciding who in her class got which card, with which color shoelace. Since her friends don't necessarily read, the teacher provided us all with 18 black & white photos of Laurel, and we got to glue them on the Valentines, so the children could look at know who they were from. 

I hope Jack (a boy) appreciated the pink kitten with pink shoelace, while Sofie (a girl) liked the pizza card with yellow shoelace. Halle (our friend) got a hot dog, while other cards were of an elephant, giraffe, zebra, etc. For the half that DIDN'T have Valentine notes on the back, all it took was a quick browse of Pinterest for me to come up with my own. I came up with some very cute ones, and I'm super proud. The giraffe: "You're HEADS above the rest, Valentine!" or the frog: "Hoppy Valentines Day!" or the bulldozer: "I dig you, Valentine!" Haha. I had a blast being super punny. Dad would be proud. 

Laurel's class learned about the post office this month, and for art one day they all decorated cards, and then the next week we walked down to the post office (just down the street from preschool), and the kids all got the chance to put their cards in the mailbox. Then, voila!, they all got cards in the mail the next day!! Laurel's came from Halle. The teacher I think randomly picked cards to go to students, but it was fun that all the cards she decorated did go to someone. 

I did Valentines for my visiting teachees... I had a six-pack of floating candles, so each of them got a candle and a couple little packaged cookies. Plus I made little cards with a stamp and corner punch. My companion and I dropped them all off one Sunday afternoon while my kids played at her house with her kids, and it was perfect. February is a short month, and we wanted to be sure to show our love.

The other REALLY cool thing the kids and I did was to HEART ATTACK some people. We had a family discussion on who to attack. Wesley chose Katy, a little girl in our neighborhood who rides the bus. He's crazy about her. Laurel chose "Sister Johnson," who I also totally love. I chose Wesley's Primary teacher, Sister Lee, who also happens to be married to the Stake President, Pres. Lee. I really love them both. What's cool is that we all kind of love all the people we picked, so we got to working on cutting out and decorating hearts. Laurel and Wesley both cut some hearts. Laurel did lots of the decorating -- Frozen stickers, Easter stamps, chalk scribbles, and glittery stars. I wrote some notes on them, and we attached some candy to a few hearts, too.

And .... the finished product :-)

Luckily NO ONE was home when we went!!! It's a good thing. My kids were so loud. Haha. The Lees had a dog I thought for sure was giving us away.

Of course, my favorite part was the Dove candy. Here was one Laurel opened but I put on the fridge for me...

My heart does have love in it today. I just finished reading a book on forgiveness that made me think a lot about the Savior and His love. Interestingly enough and sort of coincidentally, this book took place around Valentine's Day and the author encouraged people to do acts of service for Valentine's Day. And there I was, reading this book, considering forgiveness and wanting to do service. My heart was really touched this week. I think God was definitely looking out for me. 

I started reading Jesus the Christ earlier this month and that's been beautiful, too. I have such great love for my children. I have great love for every additional day God gives me on this planet. This Valentine's Day it was nice to think about other people. It gave me great purpose and I felt peace. 

Happy Valentine's Day!