Those of you who know me know I love to throw a party! I love holidays, birthdays or any other reason to let my creative juices flow or to scour pinterest for some fun ideas. Valentine's Day is one of those holidays I love. I love planning a fun day for our family and having each of their little love tanks filled up on this special day. I had a crazy few days leading up to Valentine's Day and felt very unprepared for for the ideas that were swirling around in my head! I woke up Tuesday morning because I had no idea how I was going to get every thing done and ready based on what my day looked like ... it was looking a little crazy. I planned to make the kids their heart pancakes with strawberries and whip cream for breakfast. I got out of the shower and Shane was already at the table with a bowl of cereal and said he just really wanted cereal today. Instead of making a big deal about it I thought to myself ... just let it go! So instead of the fun Valentine's Day pancakes that were planned we all enjoyed a bowl of cereal together. We had a nice, calm morning of cereal verses the craziness of a big Valentine's Day breakfast.
I had a day of running, appointments and errands. I finished finding fun little gifts for the kids for Valentine's Day and finished up grocery shopping for our Valentine's Dinner. I had about 30 minutes to pull a fun Valentine's Day after school snack together. Instead of the homemade cookies or cupcakes I had envisioned I found some yummy store made cookies. The kids loved it when they got home and they didn't even care that I didn't make the cookies.
To add to the craziness of the day I had to teach a class that I teach once a month and it just happened to fall on Valentine's Day. It was from 4-5:30. In my mind I thought things would be a little hectic but I could get our dinner pulled together quickly after I was done teaching. As I was walking out the door to teach my class Eric said to me that he was going to bring the kids somewhere and was going to cook dinner for us while I was at my class so to hurry home. My first reaction was "oh man but I have a fun family dinner planned!" Then quickly I had some sense knocked into me as I once again thought to myself ... let it go! Seriously who wouldn't love their husband to tell them he had a place for the kids and was cooking dinner ... what was I thinking. I quickly let all the plans in my head go right out the door and embraced what was to come.
I came home to beautiful flowers .....
and a wonderful smelling house ...
and a yummy looking dinner.
Eric made some amazing seafood pasta and stuffed mushrooms. We enjoyed our time just the two of us in our home at our table. What a nice treat on Valentine's Day!
The kids came home happy and before I could blink Shane had his pj's on. So we finished our evening with letting go of the planned out family dinner complete with a decorated Valentine's Day table. We will just save it all for next year :)! The kids were excited when they saw a special bag of Valentine's Day treats for each of them.
Life doesn't always go as planned and tonight is one of those nights that I am glad it didn't. I would have missed out on just being with my husband and kids today if I would have been caught up in the business of the day. I love making holidays fun and planning fun food and activities but I am learning that when it no longer becomes fun and is stressful that I have lost the love and the motivation behind it. It was a good reminder today about keeping my eyes on what is important and not getting caught up in the details. I love how God continues to mold and refine me as a wife and mom as our family grows. I have a feeling there will be a lot more letting go of expectations that I put on myself as our family continues to grow.
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