It's You Are Loved Day!

This post is really more about our Valentine's week instead of day.  We started our week out with a family night about showing love to each other and we each wrote something we love about our family on hearts and then hung them up so we could read them all week.

I love this picture...the girls think daddy is their horse

 

It just doesn't feel like Valentine's without sugar cookies for some reason, and I found some fun cookie cutters so we had all different sizes of hearts goin on.

I've found that piping on sugar cookies is the only way to go anymore.  I could waste hours using a knife and spreading the frosting on or I could pipe in less than half the time and it looks a ton better too.  It makes it hard for the girls to help that way but they liked putting the sprinkles on and honestly, they really just wanted to eat instead of help.  It was impossible to keep them out of Alivia's mouth.  She has fast fingers

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 We took some cookies to neighbors and to Grandma and Grandpa's

We gave the girls chocolate roses and new slippers (Jammie's for Livi) on Valentine's Day morning

They were super excited and love their new stuff

Grandma and Grandpa Stevenson brought us Hi Chews!!  Yay!  So cute

Look what this little Valentine got into...marshmallow anyone?

 I volunteered to help at Anisten's Valentine's party at school which was a lot of fun for me (thanks to my mom who watched Aivree and Alivia for me)

 It was super easy...I helped with the bingo game.  It was fun to meet all the kids I hear Ani talk about

 That afternoon I babysat (I babysit every Friday for a few hours for a cute family in our neighborhood who have two little girls - Kate, 3 years and Nora, 7 months) and didn't have time to make dinner, nor did I want to, so we went to the Pizza Pie Cafe for dinner.  I didn't get pictures of it except this one of Alivia being silly in her cute Valentine's dress.  We love Pizza Pie Cafe because there's always coupons for the kids to eat free so it makes it a cheap night out for our family. :)

 The next night Anisten had a "late night" birthday party and Rob and I took Aivree and Alivia out to eat at a Greek restaurant which they surprisingly loved.  Ani came home for bed and her hair was all fancy with a crown and she had makeup on.  Luckily the hairdo lasted until the next morning and she wore it that way to church (minus the crown...and the makeup).  After church we played a fun game of UNO together as a family.  It's times like this that I can feel the spirit in my home and I'm so grateful for the blessing of families in this life and in the Plan of Salvation.  I feel so much love in my heart for these people and they are my world. 

I know that typically Valentine's Day is about your "sweetheart" although Rob and I usually celebrate later so we can be with our girls on Valentine's or You Are Loved Day.  We did get the chance to go on a date though and I've noticed with the more children we have, those date nights have become so much more precious to me.  The time that I have with Rob to just talk uninterrupted or eat or go anywhere uninterrupted is rare anymore, so it means a lot when we get to have that time alone to just focus on each other.  I sure love my Valentine and feel so lucky to have him forever.