I Pretty Much Love You

It has been a love-filled week at our house!  We are learning the 13th Article of Faith which states, 

"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men... Indeed we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul, We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things and we hope to be able to endure all things, If there is anything virtuous, lovely or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."  

So, we've really been working on thinking positively and speaking lovingly.  In an attempt to build love, we made mailboxes for Family night last week: 

We made a goal that we would each write at least one kind note to one person in our family each day until Valentine's Day.  (This worked pretty well for the first five days or so.)  :)  Anyway...  most of the notes were drippingly sweet declarations of love like this:

But when it came time for Daphne to write a love note to her brother, this was the best she could do:

Oh Daffodil, we love you!    Not all of her notes were so saucy.  Here is an extra sweet one she wrote to her Dad:

 

 And a really sweet one from Isaac to me.  It reads, " Hello Mom I hope you have a wonderful day today I love you very much. Isaac" 

 Victoria brought this one to me today and said, "Mom, I don't know your email address so I just wrote this one on there.  (pointing to scribbles)  and I put a heart stamp on it!"  Could she be any more adorable!?

We put together 130 Valentines today.  Yep, you read that right.  130.  Daphne's Classmates, Isaac's classmates, Tori's classmates, my students and teacher appreciation valentines for all the teachers at the elementary school.  I *almost* got sick of Valentine's Day for a minute.  But these adorable Valentines changed my mind: 

 I actually came up with that idea a few weeks ago when Victoria started calling Clementines "Sweeties"  or "Lemontimes".  Either one made me giggle.  But when she said "Sweetie", I thought that might make a good Valentine.  Thanks to Pinterest, some other creative darling had already come up with a free printable!  Yay!

I had been promising Victoria for about a month that we would make Valentine's Day sugar cookies, so Monday's Family Night seemed like the best time.  We had such fun!! Taking into account that I burned a batch and Daphne had a drama fest of sadness, we still had a pretty good time.  Look at Tori's smile!  That made all the mess worth it! 

 For some reason, I thought it would be really fun if I could figure out a way to make everything in their lunches be heart-shaped on Valentine's Day... just so they felt a little extra love from me during lunch on the big Love Day.  Here is the finished product: 

Plus a giant sugar cookie for each kiddo.  (I am not including the picture because it was blurry)

And maybe a little bit because the cookie is way bigger than the sandwich and I didn't want you judging me. Ha!

Every Valentine's Day, I think of this message.  I love his words on Love.... 

In another recent talk, he shared this quote, 
               "The crowning characteristic of love is always loyalty."

I am grateful for a loyal and faithful God who stands at the door and knocks.  All I need do is let Him in.  His love is all that I need and has brought me everlasting joy and love through His Son and the gift of an eternal family.  I know HOW He loves me: Passionately, completely, fully, selflessly...

How do I love Him?  Am I loyal to Him?  How do I  show my love to Him as I show my love to others?  

I pray that I can some day learn to love as He does. 

"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.  Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another."

I John 4:10-11

Happy Valentine's Day!

UPDATE!!!

So...  you know how I wrote that post and shared a message from Elder Holland?  (Who is my favorite apostle even though you are totally probably not supposed to have a favorite?)  Well... THIS is what I woke up to this morning!!

It's Jeffrey R. Holland's new book (which I have been talking about for months) and a super sweet card from my husband.  It reads, "Try not to bug me today.  I pretty much love you."
TOTALLY made my day.  I love you Matthew-  you are so good to me!  Happy Valentine's Day everybody!!!

How Do I Love Thee?

Eleven

Isaac is Eleven now.  

Eleven. 

This boy right here:

Which really is impossible because it was just a few short years ago that he was born:

That he was my giggly baby boy...

His Daddy's little helper:

It was just a few years ago that he looked like this:

And didn't he just start Kindergarten?

And now look at him!  All grown up and skinny and tall and 11 years old.  I can't even believe how fast the time has gone.  

 Isaac asked for Skylanders for his birthday... and we obliged!  I think between us and GiGi, he got like 10 Skylanders!?  My Dad got him a new Baseball glove and ball, which is great- he had long outgrown his.

 The only other thing he wanted was lots of Nerf Weapons, so Matt's parents got him a big set of them:

 As you can tell, he was just a little bit happy!  

 Isaac Matthew, You have brought (and continue to bring) so much joy into my life.  Your precious smile and laugh are contagious and I love your happy helpful heart.  I cannot believe that you are 11- I'm sure you will be taller than me in no time!  You are already over 5 ft 3", so who knows what the next year or two will bring?!  I love you, sweet boy.  Thank you for being you and I hope you had a wonderful birthday!