LOVE-ly Valentine Memories

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!!!

We had a very fun day! The weather was absolutely BEAUTIFUL! AND, when I made it out to the kitchen, there was a sweet little gift from my hubby! As for me, I gave hubby a copy of one of his favorite movies (on DVD) and a gift card to our favorite coffee shop.

Much to the children's excitement, the birds are coming back and the various animals are appearing more often! Although, the animals are a bit skittish, especially when it comes to Chiquita, so getting pictures of them is not the easiest thing to do, but we did get a couple!

The morning was a bit hectic... I think I kept the kids up too late the night before, so the girls were rather cranky! However, their crankiness didn't last too long, before wearing off...

So, after breakfast, the kids set to work decorating the cupcakes we made the night before. In the meantime, I was surprised with a phone call from a new friend! It was so nice to finally "meet" Ruth!! She is such a dear sweet person! In fact, it really is SUCH a small world. I first ran across Ruth's blog one day as I was browsing through various links. Her post at the time was a video titled Redneck Bobsled. "Hum... I thought, that sounds interesting!" The kids and I watched it a quite a few times, it was SO funny. So, then I had to see just who those "friends" were that Ruth's kids were playing with that day... So I hopped over and found myself browsing through some baptism pictures. Now, I am familiar with the Tridentine Rite since 2 (soon to be 3) of my brother-in-laws are priests in the FSSP, and this particular baptism was done in that Extra-ordinary Rite. So... I was looking through the pictures to see if I by chance recognized the Priest. Nope... He didn't look familiar. HOWEVER, when I looked at the family picture all of a sudden I noticed that the Grandparents WERE familiar!! They were my sister Jamie's mother and father-in-law!!! I was looking at my sisters sister-in-law's blog!! Isn't that cool! Anyhow... It really is a small world! Isn't it?

After the kids were done decorating the cupcakes we set out to deliver some of them to a few friends. This was the first time we have done this, and it was great!! It is so nice to find ways to have your children do things for others... It doesn't take much to add a bit of sunshine to someone else's day!

**The sun was shining SO MUCH, that Capitan had a really hard time smiling! He was trying though!!

After that, we headed to our Valentine Party that Rascal's Godmother out together! At the party, the kids got to decorate even more cupcakes, pet horses, bunnies, chickens and goats, exchange cards and have tons of fun all afternoon playing with their friends.




After the party we headed to town to pick up our heart shaped pizzas, meet up with daddy after work, and then, it was out to Grandpa and Grandmas for a last minute BIRTHDAY PARTY for my not so little anymore BROTHER Scott!!! You just can't NOT have a birthday party on your 18TH BIRTHDAY!!!!!! So, we arrived with the rest of our cupcakes, and the pizzas to celebrate!! Scott was determined to get ALL those candles out and was swinging away with his hand, much to Rascal's enjoyment, once he ran out of breath! I just want to know what he wished for that he wanted so badly!

Happy Birthday Scott! I can't believe you are now 18! I clearly remember the night you were born, coming home from our 4-H meeting to find out that mom was in labor!! Our Valentine's day baby! ;)

While we were at my parents... and since for some reason I never got around to it... my Dad read the children the story of St.Valentine! (Now if I could only find my Catholic Mosaic coloring book... See how unorganized I really am!)


As we were leaving, I was waiting in the car while hubby ran in to grab his glasses, and I was SURE I saw the tree in front of me bloom before my eyes!! Maybe not, but since it is the first bloom I have seen this year, I took a picture anyways!

Can you see it???

Probably not... Here is the same picture, cropped around the darling little bud:

It was even a red bud, just perfect for Valentine's Day! I am so excited! Spring is almost here!!