St. Valentine's Day

One Valentine's Day when I was a teenager, and Heath and I were looong distance dating, I called all my girlfriends together for a boycott on Valentine's Day. We all dressed in black, and met at my house to watch non sappy movies. The only problem is that we ended up picking a movie that was ALL about love. Made us all cry and realize that we were not very good at the boycotting thing.

After Heath and I got married we quickly discovered that Valentine's day was right on the heels of Thanksgiving, Christmas, My Birthday, New Years Eve, and Our Anniversary. So we decided that we didn't really need to put more pressure on each other so we just wouldn't celebrate it. Once again I was boycotting Valentine's Day.

This year I started to think about all the times when I was growing up and my mom made sure that we always got a valentine on Valentine's Day. I thought about how my children think of Valentine's Day. They of course will take all of the Valentine's cards to school to give to their friends, but what will that really mean to them?

I heard that Valentine's Day actually comes from St. Valentine. He was a priest that decided that he would send out a greeting to each of his parishoners to let them know that he Loved them. I suddenly realized that Valentine's Day is not about Romantic Love. It is a chance to tell all of those that we love and care about exactly how we feel about them. So I thought that this year for the first time in over ten years I will celebrate Valentine's Day and celebrate it the way it is supposed to be celebrated.

So, last night I made some homemade cards for each of the children. I went to the local grocery store and bought each of them a small M&M character filled with mini M&Ms, and a small Valentine's Balloon on a stick. I set it all up on the table so that they would see it when getting ready for school. I also bought my sister a flower and card and Karston and I worked together to make a card from all the kids for her. This morning Alyssa and I went to the school my sister teaches at and interrupted her class to give her special Valentine's gifts. It was absolutley great!

Anyway that spurred on all a big craft session for the afternoon. So here are the pics of our Valentine's Day! Even though the kids had fevers and were not feeling well, they still wanted to spread the love by making a card for their grandparents.

This is my perfect Valentine's Day!