sharing the love on Valentine's day

I loved Valentine's Day as a kid. As a teenager - not so much - the candy grams and roses that could be purchased in the cafeteria and the pressure to coupledom drove me a bit crazy. Made me feel alone some years, rather than loved. And that I should be part of a couple to feel whole, which I thought was dumb.

I've never been a fan of it as a romantic holiday, but celebrating Valentine's Day with my family is just fun - I get my kindergarten teacher hat on and go with the theme - hearts, hearts, everywhere.

The only time I've made meatloaf in the last 2 years is on this special holiday. Do you know why? It's not because my husband loves it, it's because you can cut it into cute heart shapes and put a nice red ketchup heart on top. I wanted to do the mashed potatoes in a heart shape too - on each person's plate - but Derek told me (with his look) that this was going too far.

Zoe's supper face

We had our valentine's supper last night because tonight won't work. After the theme-shaped meatloaf, we passed around construction paper hearts - one for each person. We each thought of something nice to "fill their bucket" and wrote this on the heart. We passed them around one by one and Eden (5 years) said, "I love this!" She got into the writing too, and wrote either "You are fun," "You are funny," or "You are fablis" (fabulous). The two youngest wanted to read their valentines to the rest of us  - they were proud of the words that were shared with them.

We also put hearts on our world map for some of the people that we know who live overseas. This map is by our kitchen table, and it's a reminder to pray/think about these people in various places.

Eden asked Derek to draw a Valentine's picture for me. This is what he drew:

It's an interesting, fictitious wedding proposal picture. Can you see the shiny ring in his hand? He has never been down on one knee to ask me anything. Our proposal went kind of like this: "so, should we get married?" "I think so. What do you think?" "Ya, I think so too." "Ok, well - when?"

That was it. No bent knee, no ring. I wanted ankle bracelets instead. That's just the kind of girl I am.

Getting back to this holiday today - for me, it's about sharing the love - the love that's expressed within our family, but also from our family out to others.