Happy Valentine's Day {and inside-out-backwards day}

Happy Valentine's Day, loverly friends!

This morning I was up early (as usual) and had all my people's V-Day gifts prepared.

K-Man came into the kitchen and saw his card at his spot at the breakfast bar

and was so surprised because I'm not a card-giving person.

He really loved it and gave me a big huge and told me how wonderful I am,

and how much in love he is with me, and how I am such a fabulous wife, etc., etc.

Then he said,

"Oh, and you also have your night-shirt on backwards...and inside out."

The romance is alive here, folks!

(Don't worry, my hair & makeup team arrived shortly after this to transform me into a person.)

Happy Valentine's Day...and Inside-Out & Backwards Day!

valentine extravagance! {empty tank}

Happy Valentine's Day, friends!!

I hope your day is filled with hearts, glitter, and fancy boxes of chocolates.

You'll never guess in a million years what K-Man and I decided to get each other.

You'll never ever guess!

Try to guess.

I'll tell you.

Though we really COULD NOT afford it,

we decided that our love knows no bounds, financially or otherwise.

We deserve THE BEST.

We are so wildly passionate about each other 

and giddy-in-love that we simply had to show each other in a big way.

So...

We got our septic tank pumped out!

Swoon!

It is all I've ever dreamed of, and more.

But before we took the plunge on that, 

we had a personality-less roto-rooter guy come out unnecessarily to check for clogs.

It was the $146 icing on our heart-shaped cookies.

Did I mention it was completely unnecessary?

Hard lesson learned.

But here we are, all clog-free and our tank is empty.

Empty, I tell you!

Positively NOTHING says *I LOVE YOU* quite like that.

Sorry we've raised the bar, folks.

I hope you can at least come close to such Valentine extravagance. 

our valentine's dinner

Well last night's Valentine's dinner was
SO GOOD.

We went to this new little bistro in the small town
we live near.
That sounds really fancy.
And the food was fancy.
But the atmosphere was rustic, as it was an old farm house.
Which was very charming.



And Justin Beiber served us our salad.

Being a new place,
there were a lot of kinks to work out.
A LOT.
It took 30 minutes just to get our salad.
But it was SO delicious.
Thanks, Justin.

Altogether we were there for 1 1/2 hours.
They kept apologizing.
We just laughed at the fact that we were just a few
minutes from home, yet able to stay AWAY for so long.

I guess you have to have six kids to understand that.




I positively loved hearing of all YOUR V-Day plans in your comments yesterday!
Two of you had dentist appointments.
One of you had a mammogram.
And many other interesting things that made me laugh.
Oh, you crazy gals!

Thanks for participating!

my gift to you!!

In honor of Valentine's Day,
I'm giving away a
Starbucks gift card!

All you gotta do is leave a comment telling me
what your plans are for this over-hyped "holiday"!




*If you leave an anonymous comment,
you MUST give me your email address,
otherwise I have no way of knowing who the
winner is.
Got it?

happy valentine's day

Happy Valentine's Day to you, friends!


I thought I'd kick this V-Day post off with Brenden's
Facebook post from yesterday...


Valentines day is tomorrow?? Crap, I forgot to get a girlfriend, again.

Funny.


Yesterday afternoon Nick walked in from
school with a beautiful rose for
ME!

Take your eyes off my messy kitchen.


And last Friday,
Eli came home from school with a box of chocolates for
ME!


And tonight K-man is taking me to dinner!
He made reservations and everything.

Love is in the air!



And you thought I was anti-Valentine's Day
because the men in my life don't
give me gifts.

Hahahaha.

Nope.

Not at all.



Alright, people...go out there and
love on your loved-ones!

guarding the good deposit

Gracious be.

Lucy had a rough night last night and I'm paying the price
this morning.

But,
it's nothing that my giant mug of coffee won't fix.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*

There was a rare moment yesterday
when all my kids were home and looked decent enough for
a picture.
And they all cooperated.
Amazing.

Look at these lovely children.
Blessed, is what I am.

I just wanted to take the time to thank you all for
your prayers for Macy.
NO DOUBT, they make a difference.

I am blown away by how much the Lord is speaking to me
through all of this.

The Word is coming alive to me like never before
and I'm learning the unconditional love and patience of Jesus
in a whole different way.

And even though I'd really love to skip the next six+
months and get to the day when Macy
is not so lonely and can let her guard down a bit,
it would be a shame to miss out on
all these lessons.

Here is one of MANY verses I have been meditating on:

"Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you-- guard it with the help of the Holy Spirit who lives in us." 2 Timothy 1:14

I simply have no idea how anyone could do
this (or life in general) without the Lord.
I just don't.

Lastly, I'll leave you with a picture of Macy's
very first Valentine's day flowers
that she received from her dad.

Valentine's Day, Hot Dogs, and Dancing

We had a lovely Valentine's Day! K-man gave each of his ladies a rose (that would be just Lucy and me in case you were wondering!). I also got a little chocolate pizza. Nice! The rest of the day was spent on a hard, hard bleacher. Truthfully, it is great fun. We have a fun group of friends there and watching the guys play is a delight. And the concession stand is always delicious. My addiction is in rage-mode at this point in the season, so thankfully it's almost over. I just can't seem to say no to mounds of jalapenos on my nachos, eating a hot-dog in a matter of seconds (leading me to think I really could hold my own in an eating contest), and a package of M&M's tops it off quite nicely.

Tomorrow is Lucy's dance class, you can imagine my excitement. We missed last week because she woke up at 5:30 AM and I just knew dancing would not fit her mood five hours later (not that the mood to dance during class has hit her yet). So we shall see how it plays out. I have decided not to take any more pictures unless she is actually participating. Repeating the same thing every week must be boring you by now. And a few of you are a little too amused by it. :)

Brenden's awesome moves.....

#22 Nick shows them how it's done....over & over.

And The BIG Winners Are......

Happy Valentine's Day!! I'm sure you all have romantic plans for the day/evening!! I know I do!! What's more Valentine's Dayish than spending 8 or so hours watching basketball games in a cold gym, making countless trips to the concession stand to numb the pain with nachos and hot dogs? Yep, that's what's in store for me later today...and my heart is filled with a warm & fuzzy feeling just thinking about it!

BUT FIRST........

THE iPod Drawing!!

Drum Roll Please................

The BIG winners are..........

For the iPod Touch: Sally R.!!!!!

WM Gift Card: Emily B.!!!!!

Book: Aileen M.!!!!!

I will be emailing each of you later today to get or verify your addresses! I will get these in the mail to you today or Monday!

CONGRATULATIONS!!!! And thank you to each one of you who generously donated to the Morning Star Project. I pray that God richly blesses each one of you for CARING FOR ORPHANS!!