Friday, February 10, 2012

valentines

no, the actual holiday has not yet occurred, but the festivities are under way!



nothing says happy valentines day like guns and chocolate ;)


maxer had his valentines party and valentine exchange at school yesterday and the cuteness was literally amazing. his adorable teachers had previously encouraged the boys to please try to wear something pink for this special day as it also was the color of the month day. well i had some ideas to get my farm boy to put some pink on. for example, a bass pro shops hat all brown and camo except for a little pink bps lettering. he took one look at my offering and scrunched his eyebrows together and said in a loud voice " i am NOT wearing girl clothes!"



so then i just quietly put away the pink ring, pink broach, and pink scarf i had also found. instead, we dug through some boxes of clothes from my nephews we had in the storage room. at long last, we discovered a tie dyed orange and pink t-shirt, several sizes to large, with a shark on the front. well, in maxwell's opinion, the violent expression of the shark balanced out the girlish pink color, so he acquiesced to wear it. once he donned said shirt, he looked more closely at the shark to find a bit of the shark's nose was worn away. max pointed this out to me stating with a huge grin "look right here mom. this is bleed. because the shark just ate something"







i asked him not to mention that to anyone else.


from what i was able to discern between picking him up from school and throwing all the kids out of the veen so i could then rush to the stow company to work, max had a super time handing out and receiving valentines. as soon as he awoke this morning, he showed me each valentine and we read who they were from together. so cute. he has also already indulged in a couple packs of fun dip, which is pure sugar people. it could be a long day...


bear was not impressed with the fact that maxer received a bag of candy and hearts and bear did not get anything. he expressed his displeasure by throwing himself on the floor of maxer's school and loudly crying "why did no one get me candy?" miss cassie assured him next year he would get to experience the joy of valentines day parties. i am positive miss cassie is very excited to have bear in her class...

do not despair for bear though. he did get a special delivery of his own today. thanks to me, and the nice employees at splash universe in dundee, mi. somehow, despite our repeated attempts to bring everything home with us we brought to the waterpark, mommy and daddy puppy were left behind. the reunion was adorable. bear kept making like a crying sound and maxer came up to me and asked why bear kept making that noise, and i think it was because he was seriously overwhelmed with emotion. cute. and dramatic.






at home, we have also been discussing valentines day. a lot. the timing is perfect as there has been some love lost now that ayla jo can interfere in the boys' play. they are often yelling at her to stop. or bear is shoving her away. not loving. so, we used this holiday opportunity to talk about how much god loves us and therefore we should love one another.




i attempted to create a beautiful system of gifting one another with expressions of love: we each decorated cups with our names and some artwork. now, every morning, we write one other family member a card about what we love in them. or we color a beautiful card. then we distribute a piece of candy to another family member. this is so difficult for the boys to not give themselves candy, but they dutifully give someone else a piece of that coveted candy. mostly they choose daddy to receive this special gift. and i try hard not to feel bad about that choice even though i remind them multiple times that my cup is still empty. i know where the candy is stored, so i just fill my mouth when they are not looking ;)


last evening we opened what was in our cups and read the love letters we found in there. so. cute. i wrote one for each child and my darling husband. their faces were so proud at hearing what i wrote about max being a good friend and bear being a good listener today. bear responded to that letter by just giving me a kiss on the lips. love it! maxer drew a pic for brad of him taking the boys for mule sledding adventures. brads response to this clever idea, "why r these in cups?" i just replied, big picture baby. big picture. look beyond the cups to the greater lesson we are teaching the kids.

there is a lot of love.

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