Valentine's Day

I know you're thinking, "how many valentine's posts can you write?" One more, and I'll be all done! I have often associated holidays with food, and I'm slowly changing that mind set. I did make a valentine's cake last Sun (I had guests to help eat it), but when it came to gifts for the kids I stuck to non-food. They each got their own take along Doodle-Pro (which I had been planning for quite a while as they are both really into drawing all the sudden), and they each got a book that talks about love. I got them both on clearance at my grocery store, but they're cute. Timothy's book is entitled I Love You, Too and is all about the animal "child" giving a gift to his animal "momma". Samantha's is All the Ways I love You. It's a pop up book with phrases like, "Baby Giraffe asks Mama, 'Do you love me a lot?' And his mama answers, 'I love your every last spot!'"

I had wrapped these gifts (Doodle-Pro & book in same wrap) & Dan's on Tues and set them up on the bookcase for the kids to see. Timothy, of course, was thrilled and said, "A present for ME?" Yes, he is the center of the universe. He was told very explicitly that we would open presents Thursday night when Daddy got home from work. Timothy made my day Thurs morning when he was analyzing the gifts again and came to a startling discovery. "Mom, there's no present for you. What are we going to do?" I told him Daddy had my present at work and he would bring it home. He breathlessly said, "Okay".

So Dan came home with roses and my long awaited present. It is truly the most thoughtful thing he could have ever come up with. For those of you who have known me for a long time, I have worn a ring on my right ring finger for many years. I wore it on my left hand when I was single. It is my grandmother's wedding band. Sometime a while back (I can't even remember how long now), the band broke in two. It meant so much to me that I kept wearing it even though it pinched me over and over. Last June we took it to a jeweler to find out how much it would cost to basically "weld" the pieces together, and the price was crazy! In Nov or Dec I scratched Samantha with it and knew I wouldn't be able to wear it until it was fixed. Without my knowing, Dan stole it and had it fixed. He even had a couple of the tiny diamonds (it has 7 little diamonds across the top) replaced. They had fallen out, but we couldn't even tell! This ring already had so much signficance to me, but with everything my grandmother has been through this year it is especially awesome that this was Dan's gift to me. Forgive me, but I tried and tried to get a decent picture of the ring, and it just won't come out.

Dan also handed Timothy 2 roses to "give" to Samantha. He was quite the gentleman about it, while Sam proceeded to crash them into eachother. Then she tried to put them together like a puzzle, as the picture shows.