Valentine's Day

With the girls in our house outnumbering the boys 3 to 1 (or I guess only 3 to 2 if you count the cat), I'm sure you can guess how we feel about Valentines Day - what girl doesn't love a day devoted to hearts, flowers, pink, chocolates, and of course LOVE! It doesn't matter how old or young, Valentines was made for the girly girls among us, and let's bet honest, there are 3 of those in our house.

We celebrated Valentines a day early this year because Daddy was going to be gone on the day itself until around the girls' bedtime, so on Sunday afternoon we had our traditional celebration. Growing up my mom always set the table with a variety of heart plates and we enjoyed breakfast for dinner, so we've continued that tradition with the girls, and since breakfast food (i.e. anything with syrup) is just about their favorite thing in the whole world, it turns out fantastic. When the girls woke up on Sunday morning they found the table all decorated with a festive tablecloth, the heart plates, hearts hanging from the lights above the table - need I even say they were excited? You would have thought Santa Claus had visited from their excited reactions - and I guess in a way he had, because also as a Valentines tradition, everyone had a wrapped gift under their plate on the table.

Now it was almost too much to bear for them to see such a beautifully pink and hearted sight and have to hold off until after church to attack it, but they managed, staring longingly at it from across the room. As we drove home from church Sophie yelled from the backseat, "It's Valentines Day! It's Valentines Day!" By the time we got home, we were ready for the festivities.

In addition to the little presents under their plates, we also got each of the girls a Valentines snowglobe and had placed it on their plates. Bella has been dying to have a snowglobe for months, and these cute little orbs were perfect for them. As the first act of the afternoon the girls snatched up their globes and began playing. They were so excited to have them in their hands that they weren't playing as gently as they should have and even though Nate and I warned Bella repeatedly, she began knocking the globes together watching the little hearts dance in the liquid. Well, to be succinct, her snowglobe broke, or perhaps better said, burst all over the floor. She was devasted. Almost inconsolable. After months of desire she finally had a snowglobe only to see it destroyed before her eyes. It took us a few minutes to restore the Valentines cheer, but luckily we did, and this little experience actually turned into a nice teaching moment (more on that in the next post).

Finally, dinner, or ummm breakfast, was ready and we sat down to eat. Before digging into our feast of heartshaped pancackes and ham/cheese omelets, we opened our presents. The girls got some princess toys, Nate got a Kenutcky hoodie (a must now that we're official Wildcats), and I got a new toy for my camera :).

Too bad Valentines only comes once a year!

This next sequence of pictures is hiliarious - I just snapped away as the girls interacted with one another and I'm amazed I got the whole sequence of events, but it is classic. Both girls smiling, then laughing, then Sophie deciding to poke Bella's eye (not surprising), then Bella not happy she got her eye poked, then Sophie laughing because she poke Bella's eye, and then Sophie giving Bella a kiss to say sorry.

I wish I could say this was a unique event, but it pretty much follows the standard course repeateded several times a day.