Our St. Valentine’s Day celebrations lasted about a week and were a mix of mediocre-craftiness-Love and store-bought-Love and date-night-Love. The important part: it all involved LOVE.

First on the todo list were St. Valentine’s Day cards for all the Nanas and Papas. I traced Lulu’s hand and morphed it into “I Love You” in sign language, and then Mo “sewed” around the edges of a heart.

Adorable craft meets fine motor skills. Excellent.

Next up were the home-made Valentines for Mo’s preschool class. I gave her several options of phrases we could write and she chose “You are special to me!”.

Lulu, meanwhile, ate a lot of paint.

Moving on…

Next up was actual St. Valentine’s Day, where Andy surprised us all with some super thoughtful gifts.

He bought me a ticket to the Edel Gathering. It’s a weekend conference for Catholic Moms, with fantastic speakers, most of whom exist in the blogosphere under creative names such as Carrots for Michaelmas, Conversion Diary, Time Flies When You’re Having Babies, and Mama Needs Coffee. It’s in Austin. In July. I can’t think about it too much without crying, because 1. Andy is so ridiculously thoughtful and 2. I’m so ready for the sunshine.

Mo received a new princess nightgown which she has worn every night since. She recently outgrew here favorite one, and I’m pretty sure that happened overnight. That’s a thing right? Kids growing inches in their sleep? Because, by my observations, my kids fit into their clothes one day and the next day I’m inadvertently sending my preschooler to class in floods and a belly shirt…

Daddy gave Lu a fantastic new book, all about baby farm animals, but she was way more interested in the cookies he gave to all his girls. If I’m being honest, I was pretty interested in the cookies too.

Andy came home from work that evening and said something like, “I don’t suppose there are any cookies left, huh?”

I just laughed in his face…

In a nice way…. Maybe?

Our final hurrah was the Admiral’s Ball at church, sponsored by the Knights of Columbus. It was so fun to have a night of eating and dancing with some of our closest church friends. And then, since the girls refused to sleep, my dear “sister” Nikki sent us a text kindly asking when we’d be returning home. So we moved the party to our kitchen (after putting the girls down for bed around 10).

By the way, we love you Nikki. Thank you for putting up with our fussy babies, and trying so dang hard. We wouldn’t want bedtime to fail with anyone else…wait, did that come out right? Anyway, you know what I mean. We love you!

Then we all played Telestrations again, and that’s how this happened:

Andy’s fantastic drawing of what’s going to occur in 6ish weeks. Note how happy he looks, and how…um… not happy I do. I think that’s pretty accurate, don’t you?

Hope you all had a fantastic St. Valentine’s Day (or week…) as well. Know that you are loved! By the Big Guy Upstairs and these two, for certain.