Family Valentine’s Day

After Emerson went to bed last night, and I was finished working on other chores, I put together a small little Valentine’s Day gift for her, and set it out for her to find today. (And I also put together 24 Frozen-themed Valentine’s cards to share with school & church friends.)

I found this little tiny tote bag at Dollar Tree, with tiny markers attached, for a color-it-yourself bag. I got her two Star Wars themed Little Golden Books (she’s still very into Chewie), a chocolate bar, and an outfit from Walmart that she actually helped pick out a few weeks ago, but forgot about… 🙂

On our way home from Publix last night, we actually dropped off Jeff’s car at the Volvo shop, to get some stuff checked out today. So that meant this morning, we were a one-car-family, and Daddy got to ride with Emmie and come to school drop-off with us.

She specifically requested to see some videos of Chewie in the car, and then made sure to turn her cheetah around the right way, so he could see too. (And by the way, my Grandparents got me that cheetah when I was just a little girl myself. I can actually remember picking it out at from the Dollar General in Quincy, and loving the way it was shaped so good for hugging in front of you, exactly like she’s holding him in this photo.)

She was clearly very, very excited to show off her brand new Valentine’s Day outfit! And wouldn’t you be that excited too, if you were that cute in a $4 pink tutu and dino onesie?!

We had a really nice breakfast potluck spread at my office today, so we feasted on all sorts of deliciousness. (I took the easy route & brought BOGO Publix muffins.) But everything was sooo good, I decided to get a second plate of leftovers, and ate some of the best things again for my lunch as well, like the casserole, scrambled eggs in a crock-pot (how?) and strawberry-iced monkey bread. Yum!

I actually had a short work-day today, as I chose to get off early, and attend Emerson’s Valentine’s party at school! As a State employee, we get one hour of “admin leave” every month to use for school/kids’ activities, but I rarely take it, because Emerson is not yet at the age where I can pop into school for an hour, and then leave her there until the end of the day without her having a full-on meltdown, and I don’t want to do that to her. But since this party was at 3pm on a Friday, I decided to take off early, so I could attend, and then check her out of school early for the day! Jeff got off early too (since we only had one car today), so we headed to school after he picked me up.

After the quick Valentine’s party, we stopped by my mom’s office nearby, to grab some white tablecloths from her that she’s letting me borrow for the tea party. And then Emerson, Daddy and I did some tea-party-and-grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s. And obviously she had to have her own buggy. It went okay for most of it, but of course near the end we were about to meltdown, so that was tricky to navigate…

We headed home after shopping in order to get all of our cold groceries put away, and we grabbed the folding table out of our shed on the side of the house. Emerson felt the need to run a couple of circles around the front yard where we were out there, and she looked so cute!

For the past few years that Jeff and I have attended the Valentine’s Banquet that our church hosts, we have opted not to do an additional date night. So the actual night of Valentine’s is usually pretty chill, and we just have a “nice-ish” dinner at home as a little family. (Click here for 2019 V-Day.) But with the tea party tomorrow, I didn’t want to cook & dirty up the kitchen & have to clean it again, so we decided to go back out to eat dinner, at the ultra fancy and super special Kentucky Fried Chicken 😆

After dinner, we had to make a super fast run into Walmart, because Trader Joe’s didn’t have the kind of sausage I needed for tomorrow. Then we went home and immediately got Emerson into her nightgown, and started on the bedtime routine. It was kind of late at this point, and she was definitely exhausted, so everything was a big deal and there were lots of tears being shed over tiny little things. She finally got cozy with Mommy for a lullabies, and then I was able to lay her down and sing Jesus loves me relatively easily.

I’m sure you can guess I’ve still got some more work to do around the house tonight to prepare for the tea party in the morning. So now that I finish this post, I’m going to get to work and do as much as I can tonight, so that I’m not running around like a chicken with my head cut off before everyone gets here in the morning!

I really enjoyed all the extra time together we had to as a little family this afternoon, and I’m very thankful we were able to do that. It was a lovely little family Valentine’s day, and I’d say it beats battling the crowds at a fancy restaurant any day!