Valentine's Day 2013 Memories

For us, Valentine's Day is a family holiday.  My favorite moments of Valentine's Day this year:

1)  Hearing Camden sing his "Valentine song" throughout the day.  Get the melody of "Happy Holidays" in your head, but substitute "Happy Valentine's" instead.  Repeat that same phrase over and over...and over and over...and over and over - all through the day.  Loved it.

2)  Our fondue dinner.  I always love that - it's a highlight of my year.  Drew and Camden are young enough that they did not remember this tradition from last year.  Their eyes were huge upon seeing my "tower of deliciousness" (the foods to be dipped in chocolate).  We served everyone up their chocolate, let them pick what they wanted for dipping, and set down to eating.  Every once in awhile I'd hear Drew say, "Oh, Mom - you need to try dipping your banana IN THE CHOCOLATE.  It is so good!"  Or, "Mom - you have to try dipping the strawberries IN THE CHOCOLATE - it's so good!"  For me it was all a given, so to hear him delighting over each combination was very sweet.

3)  Going around the table, saying things we love about each family member.  We started naming things we loved about Emmie and went on up.  The boys did okay for the first couple of siblings, but after awhile they zoned out.  I had to help the youngers quite a bit.  Camden was a riot.  When it got to Hannah he said, "What I love about Hannah and Daisy is that they bark at me"...it seemed that he always had to bring Daisy in no matter who he was talking about - very funny.  But when he got to my turn he knew exactly what he loved about me.  "I love it when Mom and I play the game where she says, 'Camden, how big is your bridge?' and I hold my arms way out and she tickles me.  Let's play that game right now!"  After hearing all the doggie comments I wasn't sure he knew exactly what we were doing, but when he said what he loved about me it referred to a specific time and tickle game that we played and I was very touched.

4)  I loved it when all my little Valentine's were gathered back in our house at the end of the school day.  I have the most wonderful children and I have a very happy, full mother-heart.  Add my wonderful forever-sweetheart Tyler into the mix and I'm a very blessed woman!