Welcome To My World!: Valentine's Day with a Twist

Valentine's Day started out with a bang...I woke up to beautiful tulips in a vase with an extremely thoughtful card, then I had to dress, feed, and drop off the three younger kiddos to a babysitter and have batter and all the stuff you need to make pancakes over to Max's school by 8:45 a.m. A few other moms and I made a pancake breakfast for Max's class as well as the other 1st grade class. It was fun! I love the kids in Max's class and I love being "Max's mom". "Hi, Max's mom!" "Thank you, Max's mom!" Adorable.

We had spent many an hour on his Valentine mailbox...not because we wanted it to rock, but because we got a little caught up in the art and excitement of it. Max thought it was the coolest thing he'd ever seen/been a part of. It is on his bed as I type this {on March 1st}. They took them to school the day before V-Day and he came home and said, "Nobody paid any attention to anyone else's mailbox...only mine! I was like, don't you want to look at anyone else's mailbox?!" So he was proud of it too. :)

I don't remember what I did the rest of the day, but I remember it being really busy. At some point I made some bacon and DIPPED IT IN CHOCOLATE for Ty's Valentine's Day present {we aren't big on big gifts for this holiday}. I knew it would rock his world and he totally wouldn't expect it. I was excited to give it to him.

Ty had planned for several weeks that we would actually go out to dinner on Valentine's Day. We usually forego due to the crowds and do our Valentine date a different night. But he made reservations at Whiskey Creek Steakhouse and said that it would be fun to go out ON Valentine's Day for a change.

We had a romantic dinner, I gave him the bacon and ROCKED his world {it really was delicious, but I could only handle a little bit of it.} We decided beforehand that we would just do dinner since it was a school night for Max and for our babysitter. During dinner I got a text I didn't pay attention to, but Ty asked, "Who's that text from?" So I glanced at it and said, "Oh, just my dad sending pictures of Adri's kids. He's babysitting them tonight." {Little did I know...} A little after 7:00 Ty seemed kind of anxious to get home, but I told him to chill and enjoy.

Well, we did head out a little after that. When we got home, we walked in the door to some excited kids. There was a HUGE mylar Valentine balloon in the family room and the kids are yelling, "Grammy and Papa gave that to us!" My mom has said that she was sending a Valentine package and I thought, "So weird. Why would she send such a huge balloon? That must have been a really big box!" My next thought {this was all in a matter of seconds} was, "Why isn't Sandra {our babysitter} standing up to say hello?" So I walk a few steps toward the family room to say hi to her annnnd....

THERE ARE MY PARENTS! In my family room! They live in Vegas, I just talked to them the day before...and they are in my family room!!! What?! I was s-h-o-c-k-e-d. I jumped up and down, I probably hit them a few times amidst hugs and questions. Turns out, they had flown in the day before, stayed in a hotel in Bellevue, went to the Seattle Temple, shopped, and then headed our way for the surprise! Ty was in on the whole thing, and so was our babysitter, but the kids and I were totally shocked. It was SO fun! And because I didn't know that they were coming, I didn't have to do any cleaning/prep to get ready...it was nice to just have them here and to not have anything planned.

After we had settled in with the surprise, Tyler sat me on a chair and serenaded me with the song L-O-V-E (Nat King Cole). It was thoughtful and oh-so-sweet. The kids ate it up! Perfect Valentine's Day gift.

We enjoyed an unseasonably warm day the next day and spent a good chunk of it at the park. My parents did some babysitting for us, we cooked, we hung out, my mom and I worked out at the Y and did a little shopping, we watched home movies, Tyler and I went on a date, we had dance parties...it was super fun! We celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary {which was that Sunday} by sending them off to try and catch the sunset {fail} and while they were gone, the kids made a sign, we lit candles all over the family room, Ty made a playlist of love songs from the late 70's, and when they got home we had a dance. My dad isn't big on dancing, but he was a good sport. I found out that my parents have a song, which I didn't know, and so Ty quickly found that song and they danced to it. It was really fun and sweet {Always on My Mind by Willie Nelson}. I love my parents!