Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day 1999 found me single and with out a date (as did most Valentines until I met my husband).  I was in college, sharing an apartment with 5 other girls, and loving it.  I did not mind that I didn't have a date, because my roommates and I always had so much fun together, no matter what others were celebrating.  On this Valentines Day though, I was to be taken by surprise.  One of my roommates gave each of us a card.  I don't remember what the card said.  I do remember the gesture, and Valentines Day was never to be the same again.  It was no longer about romantic love for me.

This Valentines day we will be delivering cards to those that mean the most to us!  I want my boys to use Valentines Day as a reminder to say I love you, to ALL the important people in our lives, not just our spouse. So we are currently in the process of making valentine cards and will be delivering them to friends and family on Thursday.  Then we will share a nice dinner together, ALL of us, as a family, so that we can read the valentines cards that we have made for each other!  I love sharing Valentines Day with ALL of my family, not just my husband.

Pulse of the Home

Everyone knows it all goes down in the kitchen.  The kitchen/dining room is where the pulse of the home is.  Even more so in our home since that is where we have school.  To date, our kitchen, unless there is a structured and guided activity for the children, is noisy mayhem.  It is often frustrating to have to yell at my children just to get them to quite down so they can hear what I am going to ask them.  They love to run around the island and that is usually accompanied by loud laughter/screaming and eventually crying and then a time out.  At which point my husband walks through the door.  Dinner isn't ready, the children are all upset and crying, and I feel like crying.  Welcome home honey!!

A glimmer of light shone down on us today.  Church was over, lunch was over and the table cleaned up.  Jeremiah asked John if he would play with a circuit board with him.  So they got that out and I asked Caleb if he wanted to do a puzzle with me.  We were all sitting at the table and rather amicably I might add.  It was very pleasant, and an experience I would like to see repeated often!

Such moments give me hope for the not too distant future and I feel that someday Caleb's fits of screaming and shrieking will subside.  The boys will stop running around the island and trying to hurt each other in the process.   And instead of walking into a room filled with mayhem, my husband will be able to walk through the door and be greeted with smiles.