Ready for Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day has always been my favorite holiday.  I have to admit, as a kid it was tied with Christmas for obvious reasons, I don't think I've ever met a child (who celebrated Christmas) whose favorite holiday wasn't Christmas.  I had a special dress with a red skirt and white top covered with tiny red hearts.  I loved wearing that dress and saved it special for Valentine's Day.  My favorite thing about it was the heart shaped buttons on the chest area.  One year I even got to host a special Think Pink Party for my friends and my mom helped me make all kinds of heart shaped goodies.

With Thomas wearing my beloved heart dress.

The Think Pink party.  I'm in the middle in the all pink sweat suit.

Of course I loved the party at school, passing out valentines to my classmates, painstakingly writing the names on all of my valentines and even adding an extra heart sticker to the boy I liked's card.  But the very best part of Valentine's Day was our celebration at home.  My parents would make all heart-shaped food.  My mom baked a heart cake and my dad cooked a heart pizza.  After dinner we each got a small present from my parents which my mom would wrap in paper and stick heart stickers all over.  Everyone made a box for valentines and all throughout the week we would write valentines and stick them in each other's boxes.  I loved sneakily writing valentines and rushing to put them in boxes before anyone saw me.  My dad always created some wild over the top box.  One year it was a person with a milk jug head which he spray painted yellow.  Another year he used paper towel rolls and boxes to make a sort of maze for his valentines to fall through.  My mom wrote the best valentines and I even recited one she wrote to my dad the next day at school (embarrassing her to no end)!  My parents did such a great job of making Valentine's Day about our love for each other as a family and I want to do that for Carter.

Our heart shaped pizza and cake and our Valentine boxes.

Posing with our presents.  Looks like Thomas loved his Skittles and I couldn't get enough of my bear!

Thomas and me ready to eat.  You can see dad's milk jug head Valentine box.

My love for Valentine's Day continued on through college even though I no longer got to share in all the festivities with my parents.  My mom sent care packages every holiday with treats for me and all my roommates.  The Valentine's Day one was always my favorite.  I loved all the heart shaped goodies.  Hearts are one of my favorite decorations and I love that you get to have them all over the place during the month of February!  To me Valentine's Day was never about vying for the love of a boy.  It was always about those around me who I loved, most importantly, my family. 

During my first year teaching I got a pink Christmas tree because I grew up with 2 brothers and, gosh darn it, now that I lived by myself I was gonna girl that place up!  I was after-Valentine's Day shopping that year and bought some Valentine's Day ornaments for 75% off.  I knew they would look perfect on my pink tree and would give me an excuse to pull my Christmas tree back out.  Now that we have a real tree, I still use my pink tree as a Valentine's Day tree.  Ty wanted to get rid of it this summer, but I just couldn't do it.

Carter on Valentine's Day last year (2 months)!

This year as I put it up it was doubly fun because Carter "helped" me.  First he found the ornaments and dumped them all out of the package, banging them together, and having a grand old time.  When he turned and saw the tree his eyes lit up in recognition.  Even with the size and color difference he knew what it was.  He crawled over and began grabbing ornaments off the tree.  I really wanted to get a picture of him sitting by the tree and had a heck of a time getting him to sit with his back to the tree!  I am so excited for Valentine's Day this year because we will get to share it with an ever-growing Carter! 

The only one I was able to get of him facing forward!

 

I'd like to give my mom a shout out for scanning and e-mailing me the pictures of Valentine's Day past.  I had already written this post when I asked for pictures and all the pictures she sent captured what I was writing about and worked perfectly.  Thanks, mom!