Our Valentine's Day

Our Valentine's Day wasn't over-the-top romantic or anything, but both Dan and I agreed that it was one of our favorites so far.  We got our carpets cleaned in the morning, then dropped in to visit Dan's grandparents in their nursing home for a bit.  It was special to learn that it was 70 years ago on Valentine's Day that his grandparents saw each other for the first time.  His grandma had dropped in for dinner at her friend's house and her friend's brother (Dan's grandpa) happened to be home at the time.  Seventy years later, they are still looking across the room at each other with a sparkle in their eyes, and there was a bouquet of red roses on Grandma's bedside table from her Valentine.  Isn't that sweet!

Dan and the kids with "GG" on Valentine's Day

On Dan and my first Valentine's Day together in 1997, we waited for over 2 hours to get into a restaurant.  I think that was the first and last Valentine's Day we have gone out!  We had a date night a few nights ago, so this night, we had dinner at home.  I spent the afternoon working on Dan's Valentine's present which meant I got dinner on the table WAY later than I had intended (i.e. I was a stressed-out wife when we sat down to dinner).  But we did enjoy a little gift-giving, thanks to various family members who remember Matthew and Claire on special days like this.

A bracelet and necklace for Claire from Daddy

My roses =)

From Matthew =)

We were in need of new coasters and a friend of mine had made some beautiful coasters for her mom, so I made some of my own for Dan for Valentine's Day

Enjoying those expanding foam capsules from Mommy (the next day)

Then we headed to Cold Stone Creamery for an ice-cream treat!

My three favorite people!

After the kids were in bed, Dan and I put up a wall decal that we have been anticipating since last summer when we remodeled our fireplace.  It was an off-and-on project that we finally completed before Thanksgiving.  Here are a few before and after shots.

Before...

Before...The white and gray just doesn't fit with our color scheme anymore.

And after!

It took us from Thanksgiving until now to come up with a saying that we liked to go above the mirror.  Once we found this one at "A Great Impression", we both knew it was perfect.  Perfect for this space and perfect for us.

If you scroll back up to the 'before' pictures and see the tired looking swag that used to hang above the mirror, you will see what an improvement this is!

As we were putting it up, we got the news that Dan's brother and wife in Montana had just had their seventh child: a boy!  (Only their second boy,)  We were elated with the news of the healthy birth of our twelfth niece/nephew: Cameron Marcus.  It's a memory that we will remember often as we look at the verse above our fireplace.  We also had a new niece born on the first of this month to my sister and her husband in England: Kaylah Amy Eliana.  Sing to the Lord for He has done glorious things!  We are so grateful for the unconditional and never-ending love of our Savior, on Valentine's Day and every other day of the year.