Valentines Day 2013

I have always been a bit of a planner. And likewise, not generally very spontaneous (there are few exceptions to this). I think this is mostly because I really like to look forward to something. As soon as one holiday or vacation is over, I start thinking, dreaming, planning, scheming about the next one. Because of this I really am not very good with changed or canceled plans. Once I get all geared up about something it really bums me out if they don't go through, even if they hadn't been something I had really wanted to do in the first place. I think being a mom has really adapted me a bit; made me more well rounded because sometimes, things just don't go as planned. This is the case in everyone's life, though. So, as usual, Valentines Day was planned. A couple days before I had made heart shaped sugar cookies, with my faithful and ever-ready assistant James, and we decorated them for family and for some people in our ward. I found darling Valentines to make for James and we bought some CARS ones from the store just for fun. I also busted out the cricket to make some really cool Valentines cootie catchers and puppets. The night before V-day we had planned for James to have his weekly sleep over at Grandmas and then we planned to bring over Zoey the next day so we could start our morning. We had some unexpected visitors late that night so when they left just before 12 we decided to do a bit of celebrating right when it became Valentines Day. Justin, has always had a hard time with surprise gifts. He loves giving them but it almost kills him to. As soon as it arrives in the mail or he picks it up, he wants to show me. Sooooo badly. So at 12 a.m. the day of Valentines Day he gave me my gift. It is always jewelry so I knew what to expect but it always surprises me how good he does. It was a necklace. The pendant was in the shape of flower and each petal was made of a different metal. The top one was yellow gold, then white gold, then rose gold, then one studded with diamonds, then silver. It was beautiful. He is so good. Then he pulled out the bouquets. Bouquets? Multiple? I maintain, that while I might be more creative and lovey-dovey than he is, Justin is at least 50 times more thoughtful than I am. A dozen roses for me, a single rose for the sweetest old lady Margaret who lives below us and adores Justin, and then an arrangement with a rose and pink carnations for his Grandma.

I think that this attribute has become the one I admire the most about Justin. His thoughtfulness or mindfulness and even service towards others. Not just his family but our neighbors too. All the old ladies in our complex love him. When I go walking with kids I am frequently getting stopped by ladies and it's always, "Ooooh your Justin's wife! Your husband helped me move, lift, fix......" This whole time I'm thinking, 'I'm the one in your ward....and you know my husband." Haha, I'm just kidding though, I love it when I get told things like that. Once an old lady called Justin and asked him to come pick up some cinnamon rolls she made for him, haha. Justin made sure I knew that she had specified that they were for him. Then, one time we came home and there were a plate of cookies sitting on our bench outside our door. Apparently, this newly wed couple had just moved into our ward and Justin had been outside working on his truck or something and this guy had locked himself out of their condo. He asked Justin for his help and he got him in by getting our ladder for him to climb up to his balcony in hopes that a window or sliding door was open, which it was. So we got a plate of cookies. Anyways, Justin is great, now off my raw raw Justin tangent.

So we stayed up late and for some reason Zoey slept in. Zoey has become sort of my alarm clock. She wakes up between nine and nine-thirty every day and so I basically never set an alarm. But this day, she decided to sleep until 11:30. I was pretty frantic when I finally woke up because I needed to do my part of Valentines day which was breakfast. I quickly made one of Justin's favorite breakfast, Biscuits and Gravy and then arranged my gifts to him. I thought they were quite funny. A humorous V-day Card, my own version of a bouquet for men (tell you about this is a second), and the craft me and James made for him. We were eating breakfast by noon and rushed to get ready and take Zoey to my moms by 1:30. It was getting so late, we were barely going to squeeze everything we had in. We headed down to Salt Lake to visit Nanny (that's what they call their Grandma, and their Grandpa they call Papu because they are Greek). When we got there she was so happy to see us. Although she's had complications, she looked really good. More alert than I had seen her in a long time. . We sat down in their library and talked. She was so sweet and was telling us story after story about her family, people I have never known or even heard about. We talked for quite a while, more than we had planned but we just couldn't leave her. By the time, we left there really wasn't time to do anything and we decided it was best that we didn't eat since we had a dinner reservation with my parents at six. It was okay though. I was so glad that we did that. It really gave me a boost to know that we really showed some love to someone who needed it.

We went to dinner at Grub Stake that night and brought the kids. It was delicious. Far from romantic or relaxing. The kids were borderline awful at the restaurant, it was hard to talk much and my dad was in.....a mood. And, I did have to crawl under another groups table to retrieve a binky, all good though. We came home, pretty exhausted, put the kids to bed and watched a movie and stayed up late talking. You know those talks that just flow. There's no pause and no topic. Just anything and everything is said and if you were to recap it you wouldn't even remember really what was talked about. Overall, it was nothing like the Valentines I had planned or anticipated but it was actually pretty good. Haha, I was actually happy with it. Things don't go as planned. I'm realizing that more and more. And it seems that most the time, the things you remember the most were not planned. Good conversations can't be planned, the majority of babies are not planned, the best teaching moments with kids are not planned. Maybe life should just not be planned. ( Do not think that I am advocating that preparation is not a good thing, I'm speaking on more of a general day to day sense.) I was thinking about my wedding for instance, for six months there was probably not a half hour period where I wasn't planning for that day (minus when I was asleep) and that day is the biggest blur in my existence. If it wasn't for my wedding video I'm sure there are big parts I would forget entirely. Anyways, it was a good day, and it was good for me to be a little more spontaneous.

Justin's man bouquet is pepsi's stacked with some fake roses, thank you Pinterest!