Happy (Late) Valentine's!

Recently I’ve had terrible cravings for candy---mostly because I know I need to be responsible healthwise and moneywise, and so eating candy seems so naughty! So, this year I jokingly told Steven that he could bypass all flower-related romantic overtures this year and just buy me a bunch of cheapo candy to hoard.

Honestly, I really didn’t think we were going to celebrate this year due to money being tight and me currently being a huge, immobile boat--doesn’t help with feelings of romance, I’ll tell you that right now. I was rather unenthusiastic about it, and didn’t even find someone to watch the kids so we could go out together (because I’m a schlub).

But Steven is a tricky one. On Saturday, he knew I wasn’t feeling that great, and so he sent me upstairs for a nap. When I woke up and came downstairs, this was waiting for me on the kitchen table:


And guess what was inside it?


He also gave me a sweet card that had personal artistic works from all three of my boys, and a sweet message besides. That man is too much---I just don’t understand sometimes how he can be so sweet to me during these times when I must be so thoroughly irritating. He even got little treats for the boys.


That evening, after putting the kids in bed, we ordered some yummy takeout and watched the Olympics together (one of my all-time favorite activities lately). It was just what I wanted and needed. I love this man.

On another note, the boys had their respective Valentine’s parties at preschool last week. David’s was extremely informal and was actually at my house.



The kids exchanged super-cute valentines:


And Stevie made a pretty good haul at his party too:


Hopefully, we'll be working on all this candy for at least a month---but something inside me knows that's a lie.

Saddest Valentine's Day Ever

Remember awhile ago, when I wrote about how Steven and I had signed the kids up for the "Parents' Night Out" at the YMCA for Valentine's Day? We had planned to drop the kids off, and then go have a fun-filled evening together at t-he Stake Valentine's Sweetheart Ball. I've been so excited about this. My friend Amber loaned me an adorable little red dress that actually looks good on me (a feat in itself), I bought some adorable 4-inch matching pumps and some accessories to go with it. I've been just dying to get all gussied up and have a night of care-free dancing and romancing with the hubby.

It just wasn't to be.

The kids had been sick earlier in the week, but were 100% normal yesterday, with no fever, no up-chucks, and no peakiness. They were bouncing off the walls like normal kids. We went out to lunch around 2pm to "La Brisa," our all-time favorite restuarant down here. Stevie was acting sleepy, but I just attributed it to the fact that he had spent the morning at a skating birthday party and had an amazingly hyper time.

Not so.

At five o'clock, as I had just finished packing their dinners, snacks and diaper bag, Stevie throws up not once, not twice, but three times in a row (in three different areas, mind you). He seemed fine after that, but we just couldn't let him go and spread it to all the other kiddies (though I struggled over this for a few minutes, mind you).

I feel like punching someone. But instead I'll spend yet another night watching Blues Clues, cleaning up puke and trying to keep my kids from killing each other.

Boo-hoo.

At least the YMCA gave us our money back.

Makin' Valentines

This is Chassy.

Just a little plant we picked up at Walmart in order to fill up my incredibly bare bookshelves. Stevie decided to name it "Chassy" (reference unknown). Recently Chassy has been losing a leaf or two lately, due to the fact that though we were in raptures when we found him, we now consistently forget he's there. Anyway, when these two leaves fell off (actually, one fell, the other was pulled...that's another story), they looked vaguely like hearts to me.


I thought to myself, "Well, we'll just dip them in paint and use them to make little hearts for valentines!" Sounds like a perfectly crafty-mom idea, no? Well, unfortunately, when we tried to use them, they really just made huge red and pink splotches. Que Sara. The kids still had fun making a mess and gluing stuff (oh, how they love to glue).

This was seriously the first time I've done a project with the kids where the mess wasn't so collasal afterwards that I wanted to burn the house down. We actually (all) had a lot of fun. I just let them go crazy. And the cards turned out kind of fun, too. A tad abstract, but still cute.

Tidbits

Stevie got another bloody nose today at the YMCA. This is the 2nd time, and the workers naturally FREAK OUT when it happens. Little do they know that he constantly gets bloody noses, and so I wasn’t too concerned. And I forgot to put Vaseline in his nose today (doctor’s recommendation). But it did pretty much blow my workout. Stevie wanted to go home so I figured we should.

But on a MUCH BRIGHTER note, Steven and I have……dum, dum, duuuuuuuuummmm---SIX WHOLE HOURS TO OURSELVES ON VALENTINE’S DAY!!! They have this wonderful “Parent’s Night Out” program at the Y (for a small fee, of course) and you bet I signed the boys up straight away! 4:00pm-10:30pm of completely child-free playtime! What will we do with ourselves???? Seriously, SIX HOURS! I’m sure we’ll think of something.

Have I mentioned how much I love the YMCA?

St. Valentine's--Family Style

We decided to go out to dinner Wednesday night, as a family, for Valentine's Day. Not the most romantic idea we've ever had, but practical, considering we had to pack all day today. We're driving a U-haul filled with the last of my dad's things to his new house in Galveston on Friday. Well, Steve will of course be driving the U-haul. I can barely handle the stick shift on his Isuzu, much less a big rig. I will be driving the six hours happily listening to Harry Potter audio books (yes, I'm THAT nerdy) while my kids watch DVDs in the back. (or sleep....please let them sleep!)

Dinner, as I mentioned before, was less than romantic. Stevie decided he'd much rather hide underneath the table than eat anything offered him. Later he decided it was also fun to try and slide Mom right off the booth (he succeeded once). It was nice, however, to have a delicious meal cooked and served to you by someone else--absolutely lovely, in fact. And though our comments tended to be like "put that down," "don't do that," or "stop eating that coaster," we did get to have some much-treasured family time that hasn't been very available to us lately.

I sure love my boys; all three of them.