A Boy Valentine

Valentine's Day is something that has to be celebrated very carefully around here.  There is only so much gushy love and flowery hearts that will be tolerated by a group of guys.  I did my best to help the boys create masculine valentines for their friends and family members this year.

They appreciated the log truck pic and Noah enjoyed the play on his "ould" words.  But other than that they were a little upset that we couldn't find "guy" heart stickers.

And speaking of masculine hearts, it is very hard to buy a boy a gift on Valentine's especially if you want to stay away from the sugary sweets.  The boys and I went into TSC on Monday to pick up some paint and saw that they had a new shipment of baby chicks just arriving.  Of course they fell in love and begged for some.  I did not get them then but went back late last night and picked up twelve, three for each boy and we gave them to them for a Valentine's Day gift.  They were very excited to get up this morning and discover chicks in the house.

Joe does a great job for Valentines to make me feel special, and he does try his best to teach the boys how to treat me special so that they will learn how to treat their wives someday.  He took the boys Valentine shopping this week so they could pick something out for me.  (Side note here...when Joe goes out with all of the boys he gets admiring stares, compliments on their behavior, and comments like "You are so brave" and "Your wife is very lucky".  Not sure what I am doing wrong because all I get is "Bless your heart" and "You know if you clipped coupons, you might be able to save enough to afford a sitter while you shop".)  He let each of the boys pick out a card and they got me some beautiful potted tulips.  He said he tried to guide them, but let them have the final say in what cards they chose for me.  I have to say that Noah did a great job at getting an appropriate sweet Valentine's card for me.  Micah picked out a cute tri-fold card filled with Dalmatians.  The first words were "We grandkids got together to send this valentine to you..."  The little fellow was so proud that he had picked it out all by himself!  Then Jonah's card was even better.  It had roses all over the front and started out with "My Love, I don't ever want you to think I take you for granted" and went on to tell me how comfortable I am to be with and how beautiful I make his life.  Needless to say, their cards brought lots of smiles and I will treasure them always.

Tonight we did something a little different.  I didn't want to get too mushy and gushy, but I did want to treat the day special.  For dinner, I served all of my men in Cupid's Crazy Cafe.  Now before you go any further let me tell you that I did not come up with this on my own.  I found it on a very cute website called The Dating Divas.  I converted our kitchen table into a fancy restaurant table, complete with flickering candlelight.





This was such a fancy restaurant that we only served kings and queens, and of course all kings and queens wear crowns...right?  To be fair, the crowns were supposed to be red, but my printer was acting wonky!



Each seat had a Cupid's Crazy Cafe menu for each person to fill out.

The inside of the menu looked like this....

Each person had to use up all eight numbers of the love inspired dishes in the order that they would like to receive them before anything was served.  Jonah took this job very seriously.



What they did not know was that I had prepared a cheat sheet that let me know what each of those love inspired items stood for.

Poor Joe ended up the worst of all as he did not get a spoon or fork until dessert.  Noah ended up with meatloaf and strawberry cake for dessert!

Micah enjoyed getting to eat his cake before his meal, but didn't get his drink until the dessert round.

Ezrah ate more cool whip off of the top of the cake than anything else, and some of it even got in his mouth.

And let me just say once again that Joe is such a good sport.  I love that man more every day.  He is so dedicated to our boys and he just goes right along with whatever crazy plans I have up my sleeve.  By the way, you know you have officially lost it when you are relaxing after dinner and realize that you and your husband are the only ones in the house still wearing paper crowns on your heads!

 

 

Happy Valentine's Day Everyone!

 

 

 

Pulling The Plug

In church last week, our Pastor did a children's sermon on Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent.  He obviously did a good job because that was all my children could talk about over Sunday dinner.  Pastor Larry had suggested giving up hard candy...but my kids took it a bit further.  Just the night before, Joe and I had been complaining about the cost of our Dish Network television service.  Our kids (all on their own) decided that they would like to get rid of the television until Easter and give away the money that we would have spent on the service.

Now I will admit right here that I tried to talk them out of this plan.  I utilize the television a lot during school hours when I need to work alone with one child.  I probably use it much more than I should, but because of this...I was the only holdout.  I looked to Joe for backup, since I just knew he would be against missing Swamp People, Axe Men, and Duck Dynasty in the evenings...but he was actually on board with the boys.  So, outnumbered and overruled, I agreed that as a family we would give up television for Lent.

I called this morning and officially pulled the plug on Dish Network.  We are planning on after Easter going to some sort of subscription such as Netflix or Hulu, but we need to see how these next few weeks go first.  The withdrawals have not started yet, and this may surprise me and turn out to be an easy transition...or not.  I think I am going to have to get creative!

Snakes

I am raising boys, and sometimes they do really boy things.  Boy things that make me cringe, shake my head, and mostly laugh.  More times than not, if I ask why they do the things they do, I regret ever asking.

Today was a different type of day for me.  I ended up in town with only two kids, Micah and Ezrah.  Micah had spent the night before with his Pappy and Linnie, and was so excited because Pappy had given him FOUR whole quarters for helping him take care of his plants.  I promised Micah that we could go to the Dollar Tree so that he could spend his money.

When we got to the Store, of course Micah had to look at every item on every shelf to make sure that he was getting exactly what he wanted.  He ended up choosing a pack of toothpicks.  (See what I mean about shaking my head!)  Anyway, he carried his toothpicks around with pride as I finished up getting the few items I needed. 

I noticed that Micah would take a few steps, then stop and wiggle his behind.  I watched this for a few minutes and then curiosity got the best of me and I asked him what he was doing.  He looked up at me and proudly (along with loudly) proclaimed.  "I am playing with the snake that lives in my pants!"  This would be the shaking my head, cringing, and regretting I ever asked all in the same moment.  However, my morbid curiosity would not let me drop it at that.  I just knew there had to be some explanation so I asked him what he meant and he said, "Just listen Momma!"  At that point he did his little butt wiggle again and I heard the clinking together of the four quarters my Dad had given him earlier.  He said that was the "snake" in his pants rattling. 

I had to laugh, and then offered to pay for his toothpicks so he could continue playing with the snake in his pants.  So, if you see Micah doing a little butt wiggle every now and then, there is no need to ask, just listen carefully for the rattle of the snake in his pants!