Love is in the Air!

Love is in the air all around on Valentine's Day. I wasn't feeling the love late last week. I was in a foul mood and unhappy with my valentine over various realities/responsibilities of being an adult. Of course that bad mood dissipated, as it always does. I was reminded that being in love means loving each other wholly and completely....even loving the parts that aren't easy to love. My valentine and I both have our shortcomings, but in the end, that is what makes us greater together. To lighten the mood, Avery and I decided to "decorate" for Valentine's Day, which is something I have never done outside the walls of my elementary classroom! We found a strand of heart lights and heart doilies in the dollar section at JoAnn's. Avery and I strung the doilies on a pink polka dot ribbon and hung it from the mantel. On the same trip to JoAnn's, Avery and I saw these two girl metal decorations. Avery immediately decided that the girl in red represented Piper and the girl in pink represented herself. We hung the girls from the light that hangs above our kitchen table. We named them Valentina and Penelope. We like to give things fanciful names!

On my kitchen windowsill, I had a little heart birdhouse and heart votive holder, both from Target and less than $5. The two girl ornaments were stocking stuffers from my mom at Christmas that she found at Anthropologie. The blonde girl is Piper and the brunette with the unraveled braids is Avery. I love these two little ornaments so much that I plan on leaving them out year round.

I rarely take naps, but today when we got home after a weekend trip that I will blog about soon, I decided to take a nap while Piper napped. I curled up on the bed with my blankie and snoozed the afternoon away. While I was sleeping, Matthew and Avery sat in the kitchen and made me some Valentine cards out of our craft supplies. Here are the two little paper hearts with glitter that Avery made for me. They are so sweet!

Even sweeter though, is the pop-up card that Matthew made for me. I was so surprised tonight when he gave it to me. You gotta love a man who will make you a pop-up card.

Tonight we were lucky to get a rare night without the girls to go to dinner alone. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law came over and watched Avery, Piper, and Sarah, my niece. Matthew and I had reservations at Harry & Izzy's downtown. I love Harry & Izzy's because of the ambience. It has a 1930s feel about it with Sinatra type music playing at all times. We had a great time! On our way out of the restaurant, we asked the hostess to take our picture. Here we are.....on our 15th Valentine's Day date together!! Our first Valentine's Day was in 1996 and we haven't missed one since!

On our way home, we stopped and got my mother-in-law pink roses and my sis-in-law a single rose to thank them for watching the crazy girls for a few hours. When we were buying the flowers, the bagger/sacker (whatever you call them) was a kid who was in my second grade class years ago!! I always feel a little old when I see former students out working. He looked exactly the same!

Now I am typing as my three valentines are fast asleep. My big valentine is asleep with a bad migraine, my five year old valentine is curled up next to her Daddy in bed, and my littlest valentine is snug in her crib. I think I should try harder to make every day feel like Valentine's Day...making sure that I show my love and gratitude for those around me each and every day. Since it is Valentine's Day, at least for 14 more minutes, I will leave you with a poem. I love e.e. cummings, despite his major issues with punctuation and grammer. We all have our shortcomings, like I said!

i carry your heart with me

by e.e. cummings

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in

my heart)i am never without it(anywhere

i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing,my darling)

i fear

no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want

no world(for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows

higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)