Valentine's Day 2016

Valentine's isn't really an important holiday to me. I don't expect gifts from Josh or anything like that. (But I will use it as an excuse to go out to dinner just the two of us!) But when you have elementary age kiddos, Valentine's is a big deal.
Ours started with making boxes for their valentine's at school. Macie had to decorate hers at home, and Brenna was supposed to do hers at school. But after she saw Macie's, she insisted that she do part of hers at home. ha!
All I did was wrap them in red and hot glue the tall hearts for them. They did the rest! I wish I had a picture of Brenna's finished box. :( But she tore into it at school and never brought it back home.

They took them to school on Thursday. And that afternoon was Latte in the Library with Brenna's class. I am so glad I got to go. I don't always get to go and be at things with them, but I am thankful that occasionally it works out for me to be there! And I think she enjoyed having me there too!

When did she grow up?? Makes this mama sad some times.

She enjoyed showing me around her library and telling me which books she was allowed to check out.
Friday was their Valentine's parties. Since they were in the afternoon, I didn't get to go. But thankfully I have great friends that send me pictures of Macie's party. It looks like fun was had by all!!

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of Brenna's party. But she says they had a great time enjoying ice cream Sundae's!!
That evening on the way into volleyball practice, I saw this as I looked down the Kinder and 1st grade hall.....

I guess that's how you know it's been a good party day in an elementary school....large amounts of trash!!
As I said earlier, I do like to use Valentine's Day as an excuse to go out to eat sans kids- So Friday night, we did just that! Aunt Kim was all to willing to keep the munchkins....which concerns me a little. She is always a little TOO eager to keep them.. what does she do to them while we are gone?? Other than give them whatever their little hearts desire and spoil them ROTTEN! :)
I was thinking Boo Rays or Railhead for a dinner alone. Something good, yet simple. Josh had other ideas. So we ended up at the Fire Oak Grill in town. OMY- it was good!!! I started my dinner off with this little gem...

A Parker County Peach Tini. And it was so good! And it was followed by a prime filet. I wish I had taken a picture, but you'll have to take my word for it. It was UH-MAZING!
We went back and picked up Macie, because Brenna decided she NEEDED a sleepover at Aunt Kim's. :) And we all slept in till after 8 the next morning! Well- I don't think Macie did, but I gave her a serious lesson the night before on how to turn on the tv and to get a snack to tie her over until Daddy and I woke up the next morning! Parenting at it's finest, people. And I am pretty sure she had herself a string cheese and a juice box before we even woke up. Oh well- because did I mention we got to sleep until after 8am?!?!
On Saturday Maylee came over to play for the day while her Mama and Madison went to a soccer championship game. They had a great time! We went and watched Brenna play some great volleyball and ended the evening with pizza! Great day!!
On Sunday, which was Valentine's day, Josh had to work. But Brenna had asked if we could go to the cemetery and send balloons to MeMawMom. And Emily called about 2 weeks prior and said Wyatt wanted to go and give a valentine to MeMawMom just like he did last year. So we planned to go that afternoon.
I thought the girls looked precious as we headed to church.

The sun was in their eyes, so I didn't get a great picture, and Macie is in this awkward smile phase.... but you take what you can get!
Macie is also in this phase of not wanting to go to her Sunday School class, so she goes to church with me. I secretly kind of like having her sit next to me. And my heart just melted when I peeked at her during one of the prayers and she had her palms turned up and her hands open and her head bowed to pray, just like we do in church. Our pastor always says to not close your hands to God, but rather to open them up to allow him into your life. Macie Claire picks up on so much more than I give her credit for some times.
After church we picked up Aunt Emily and Wyatt and headed to eat at Nizza Pizza. I think we had the cutest Valentine dates in town.

But don't be fooled.... these three are far from sweet smiles all day long. This is mostly the side of them that we see...

After lunch we headed to pick up balloons. Brenna insisted that we needed flowers too since that is what we did last time. So I let each kiddo pick out a set of flowers. They really enjoyed picking their own balloon (even if we picked 10 different ones and they were out of every. single. one. that they liked.... so they all 3 ended up with red hearts. At least they THOUGHT they got to pick them out!)
When we got to the cemetery, we let each kiddo write on their balloon.

Poor Macie Claire, hers popped when she was signing her name. Luckily Aunt Emily was quick thinking and stuck her finger over it to cover the hole while I gave it some thought on how to cover it to keep some of the helium in it. Then I remembered taking a sticker tag off of the flowers, and voila! The hole was fixed, and we only lost about half of the helium.
They were so excited to be here...

I wish I could have said the same for myself. Cemeteries are not my thing. My Mama isn't there. Only her sick body with a stone to mark her body's final resting place is there on that hilltop. SHE is healed and happy and living with her Savior! So visiting the cemetery doesn't mean anything to me. It just makes the hurt come back and all I can feel is the pain I felt on February 21st of 2015 as I stood there and realized that nothing would ever be the same in my life again. And if I am being honest, I can do without reliving that feeling.
But to the girls, this is something THEY can do to remember and honor their MeMawMom, so this trip was all about them.
We released balloons first so that hopefully Macie's balloon would float.

Notice that big white strip on her balloon? Yep- that was the sticker from the flowers!
Next stop for these balloons.... MeMawMom in Heaven!

And with that, we watched the balloons float away.... Except for poor Macie's. After all we went through to salvage it, it floated right into a stinking TREE! UGH! I wanted to start crying for her!! But I convinced her that the wind would eventually blow her's out of the tree and send it up to MeMawMom. And that would only make hers more special since MeMawMom would get it all by itself! Luckily she didn't cry. I don't think I could have handled it if she had.
Next up was flowers! I let each kiddo put the flowers they picked into the pvc pipe VASE beside MeMawMom's stone!
Macie went first...

Then she instructed Wyatt on how to do it...

Brenna wanted to leave her flowers and a note she had written in front, but I told her to put the flowers in the vase and to tuck the note under the flower arrangement that Nina had gotten.

I saw the note she wrote the night before and snapped a picture of it. It totally made me smile and broke my heart at the same time.

It says "MeMawMom you are awesome. You are kind. You fill my day with all sunshine. You are my BFF. You are sweet. You are like candy with the best taste. I can't stand being away, but thinking of you will fill my day. Love, Brenna"
Y'all- MY HEART! She wrote more that morning, but I don't know what. I didn't get to read it again. That girl and her MeMawMom had a special bond.
By the time we were done, I was DONE. Ready to get out of there. So we headed home.
I spent the remainder of the evening watching a movie with Brenna. We got her "Troop Beverly Hills" for Valentine's day, and I MAY have made her wait to watch it until I could watch it with her. ha!

It was one of my favorite movies growing up. And I absolutely LOVE introducing the girls to some of my favorite childhood movies! So much fun!
All in all- it was a good Valentine's day. But I couldn't help but think back on Valentine's day last year. We spent it at Mom and Dad's. Josh bought ribeyes, wine, strawberries to dip, I curled up in bed with my Mama while the guys did the cooking. Nina hung out with us too. And the kids played outside. Mom was getting so weak. I don't remember noticing how much more frail she was looking, but I see it as I look back on pictures. Mom got up and tried to eat with us but just couldn't, and asked to go back to bed. Wyatt, Joey and Emily came by as we were about to take her back to bed and Wyatt gave her a valentine he made for her.

Man- that picture is hard to look at. But it does a lot for helping me remember why I am so thankful she isn't in pain anymore.
And later that night, Brenna shared her ice cream with her MeMawMom. Melted my heart. She even fed it to her. Bless it.

Oh how life changes in a year. We had no idea that day that we only had 4 more with her.......