My Funny Valentine...

I LOVE Valentine's Day - and I really think everyone should celebrate in some way or another, big or small. I just think it is a day to celebrate love (which is worth celebrating) and it doesn't have to be just love with a significant other, but love of family or friends too. There is a lot of love in all our lives and I see nothing wrong with taking a special day to celebrate that.

Since I had special plans with Nathan on Valentines day I decided to give the kids their Valentines presents the day before. So, when we all got home I gave the kids their gifts. They each got a new sippy cup (Ryan got owls and and Noah got dinosaurs - of course), a book, a movie, and a card. Noah got a Discovery Channel dinosaur movie and you should have seen his reaction - he literally knocked me over with a hug and said "thank you so much for bringing me this dino movie" and told me at least 8 more times before bed that night. Noah is one of the most thankful kids I have ever seen. Ryan's favorite part was her new sippy cup - the girl likes to eat and drink :) I think she will love her new Minnie movie though.

Since I do not work on Fridays, Nathan sent me beautiful flowers to work on Thursday. I was really surprised! (I LOVE surprises) He then came by for lunch and said he was bad at keeping surprises so he went ahead and gave me another gift - a Ronaldo bracelet I have been wanting for months! He did good :) The next morning Nathan asked me why I didn't buy anything at a local store we were shopping at the day before and I told him I saw lots of things I liked, but was trying to save my money. He then pulled out a gift card to that store and told me not to worry about it. He is seriously the greatest! He went above and beyond and I am definitely feeling the love! I got Nathan a new watch he had been wanting but also planned a little getaway with him.

My beautiful new bracelet :)

On Valentines morning before the daycare party

The best I could get on Valentines morning :)

She HAD to have her ear plugs to play with or she cried - the stinker :)

Nathan loves shopping, eating, and piano bars. So, what better gift than to take him to Branson to stay at the Hilton in the middle of a shopping center that just so happens to have his favorite restaurant in it and a piano bar?! We went up early Friday and did some shopping and had lunch at Shorty Smalls (my favorite Branson restaurant), enjoyed the hot tub, then went to dinner at his favorite restaurant Joe's Crab Shack! From there we went to Ernie Biggs Piano Bar and had a great time! We love listening to the live music and the musicians are so funny it is like you are at a comedy show too. We got back to the room at 1:00 a.m. We have neither one stayed up past 10:30 in a long time so that was crazy for us :)

We decided we are getting old though, we both still woke up around 6:30 a.m. and had trouble getting back to sleep. We finally just got up at 8:30 (after both falling back asleep off and on) - which, for us, is sleeping in a lot these days! We did a little more shopping and had lunch at Black Oak Grill before heading home to our babies. We pretty much talked about the kids the entire time we were gone. We have such awesome kids that even though we more than enjoyed our time away, we could not wait to get home and see them. They are just good kids that we just thoroughly enjoy spending time with.

Nathans mom kept the kids at our house for us and the kids loved it. Noah kept telling me how much fun he had and Ryan was even saying "Meme" (what we call Nathans mom) when we got back. Plus, we got a bonus of Nathan's mom doing our laundry and dishes while we were gone! All we asked was to keep the kids alive - so she went above and beyond!

I think this Valentine's Day was very successful - we all felt the love and got to celebrate in our favorite ways!