My Funny Valentine..'s Day. I mean, Week.

The other day, I had Leah making Valentine's Day cards for my mom and dad. She dictated to me things she enjoyed doing with each of them, and then I wrote out on a separate piece of paper, "Happy Valentine's Day! I love you Grandma (and Grandpa, on a different line)." I let her get to decorating the cards, and told her where to copy the words on the actual Valentine themselves.

Then I got a call from sister Ruth. She was making a mango tart (yum!) and needed some reassurance, of which I had little to give, never having made a tart myself. But I digress.

While Ruth and I were visiting, Leah came up and started this routine, "Moooommmy! I neeeed heeeeelp! Can you heeeelllp meeee? Mooooommmy?"

So I asked her what was wrong. She said, "I can't write the woooooords!"

"But Leah, I wrote them all out for you. Just copy the letters!" (I'm still trying to communicate with Ruth through all of this.)

"But I can't seeeee the letterrrrs!"

"You can't see the letters? What, are you blind? Why can't you see the letters?"

At this point Ruth chimes in, "Did you just say, 'Are you blind?' !!!"

I said, "Yep. I did. And that's pretty much why I'm not going to homeschool." Also, thought to myself that Leah's informal "homeschooling" should have involved phone manners - about 2 years ago.

Speaking of Valentine's Day, here are some other things we did to celebrate:

* Made these little gifts for Leah's teachers at Awana (Wed night) and Sunday School. They are tubes of hand lotion, and on Leah's handprints is says, "You deserve a hand!":

* Put together these little snack bags for her Sunday School classmates. The tag reads "Bear Hugs for You!" and inside is a mix of Teddy Grahams and gummi bears. Credit to Family Fun magazine - as with the handprint idea.

*Had a new front door installed (finally! Door saga is finished! Let the painting begin!):

*Baked and decorated chocolate Valentine's cookies:

*Hosted a baby shower for Jess and baby David, which involved a game of drawing a baby (plus accessories) on top of your head. Fun photos!:

*Met our newest niece, baby Madeline Veronica! She was born to Erica and Josh on February 8th at 10:55pm. She was 4 weeks early, thanks to some health complications of Erica's. But, Maddie weighed 5 pounds, 15 1/2 ounces! She was very healthy and started nursing right away. Erica needed some extra care, but now everyone is home and doing really well. Because of Ben's cold and their 2 bedroom apartment, just Aaron and I went up to meet the little princess and left our two buggers with Grandma and Grandpa. We had a lovely time, and really enjoyed our time with the new family of three.

So, there were no roses and no chocolates, but it was a holiday filled with lots of family and lots of love. I can only hope your Valentine's Day was as well spent!