Our Valentine's Day

I must admit that this Valentine's Day was one of my best Valentine's Days yet. From creative Valentine presents from Michael to hugs from the boys to a visit from my sisters, Emily and Laura, I loved every minute of Valentine's day this year.

A couple days before Valentine's day, the boys and I made a few valentines. I especially enjoyed supervising Alden as he made Valentine cards for all of his friends at school (I love that he considers everyone in his class his friend). One lady at Michael's work said she hated Valentine's Day because she hated doing the Valentine cards for her kids to take to school. Since this was my first real experience with such things since I was in grade school, I actually really enjoyed it. I guess it shouldn't surprise me too much because I loved making the valentines when I was in elementary. We would always make our own Valentine's box too, which I also loved! However, in all actuality, Alden did all the work. The only thing that I did was supervise the stickers that he put on them. He didn't bother reading any of the stickers he stuck, so I tired to make sure that he didn't put "You're cute" stickers on the boys' valentines. Other than that, he did a great job, and we had a lot of fun.

On Valentine's Day, Thobe had his Valentine's Joy School Party. He was so excited. When Laura Talbot (the other Joy School mom) told him that they were going to have a Valentine's party, he was thrilled! She told me that he kept saying, "We're going to have Joy School Valentine's party?" He gets so excited about parties. He had a great time with his friends Eliza and Annie. Eliza just turned 2 and her favorite word, at least when we're there, is Thobe. She says it over and over and over again. We feel so happy to have the Talbots as our friends.

Hyrum's Valentine's Day was just another day for him. He enjoyed pointing out the lights to us. Right now, his favorite word is light. He goes around the house finding lights that are turned on and repeats over and over again, "'ight, 'ight, 'ight." It's very cute. He also loves to open and close the garage. He tries and tries to push the button and when he finally connects, he opens his mouth as wide as it will go and starts jerking and shaking because he's so excited! Perhaps his favorite thing is to make messes. He loves pulling things out of drawers, spilling water out of cups, throwing food on the ground, and tearing toys out of the their buckets. He also recently began climbing up things. His favorite thing to climb are the little chairs that we have down stairs. He'll climb on top of the chair and stand there. It makes me very nervous. If it's close to the little table that goes with the chair, he'll climb from the chair to the table and turn the lights on and off saying, "'Ight, 'ight" the whole time. He's pretty adorable, and he knows it!

Personally, I had a lot of fun exchanging gifts and eating lunch with Michael. I feel so blessed that Michael gets to come home almost everyday for lunch. It is so much fun! Michael bought me a beautiful bouquet of flowers that he designed himself. Later that day after I picked Alden up from school, there was a knock on the door. It was the Lima Beane Chorus, a local barbershop quartet from the area, bringing me a singing Valentine. It was so much fun. Alden, Thobe, and I loved it (Hyrum wasn't so sure about 4 strange men coming into our house). It was a very creative and fun idea for Valentine's Day.


After they left, while the boys were downstairs, I rang the doorbell and asked the boys to get the door. Alden was thrilled to get a surprise Valentine from someone. He kept trying to guess who might have brought him and his brothers a Valentine. "Maybe it was Austin? Oh thank you Austin! Mom, Austin brought me a Valentine" (Austin is a neighbor boy down the street who is in Alden's class). I suggested that it might be Grandma or Daddy or a Valentine fairy. He had such a fun time guessing who it might have left him a Valentine.

Perhaps the most exciting part of Valentine's day, especially for the boys, was to go to Detroit to pick up Aunt Emily and Aunt Laura, who just returned from her LDS mission to Riverside, California. Hyrum had never met his Aunt Laura, and it had been over 18 months since the rest of us last saw her. Laura and Emily were probably even more excited to see us, especially since they were supposed to get into Detroit 24 hours earlier! Their plane kept getting delayed, which did get them a free airline ticket, but we really wanted them here earlier. Nonetheless, we were thrilled to pick them up. When Alden saw Laura, he ran up to her and before hugging her or anything, he said, "Well, hello there!" It was so much fun to see both her and Emily. We stopped for dinner in Monroe, Michigan at Pete's Garage. I had been to this restaurant once before when Alden was a baby. Despite a very horrible diaper experience, I remembered eating a delicious dinner in an old car and having so much fun. Unfortunately, this dining experience was nearly as pleasurable. Since it was Valentine's day, the place was packed, the music was so loud that I couldn't even think straight, and they sat us right next to the smoking section that was only separated with a wall that was maybe six inches taller than our heads. We could have easily reached up and touched the smokers who never stopped smoking the entire time we ate. The meal was only so-so, but even if it had been as tasty as I remembered, inhaling all that smoke would make even the tastiest morsels much less appealing. Hyrum was tired and squirmy, which also made things less enjoyable. Fortunately, I loved the company and had a fun time catching up.

We got home around 11 to my sleeping Valentine and all fell into bed exhausted.