Valentine's Day...

I see a lot of negative posting about Valentine’s Day. Well, holidays in general. And I agree, they are WAAAYY over commercialized! I mean, do you really need to have Christmas trees right next to your Independence Day display? Probably not. But whatever, I’m not in retail, so I’ll just decorate my house when I’m good and ready.  Personally, I like holidays. I like decorating for them. I’m not Irish, but I have my St. Paddy’s Day stuff ready to go on display tomorrow! After that it’s Easter, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Labor Day before we dive back into the holiday season (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s). It’s the fun of it. The whimsy of decorating…and for me, it helps break up the monotony of the long, gloomy winter up here. I do agree with a lot of things that I see, though…

I don’t need a special day to know that my children love me. They show me every day with their actions and the hugs and kisses that they share with me.

My children don’t need a special day to know that I love them. I tell them every day…over and over…and I show them with the things that I do and by living my life with their best interests at heart.

I don’t need a special day to know that my husband loves me.  He tells me daily, makes countless sacrifices for me and our children and is the rock in our family.

I don’t need a special day to tell my husband that I love him.  I tell him daily, put him and the children at the center of my world and am there for him no matter what.

Not to mention the fact that I have an anniversary to celebrate the loving relationship that I share with my husband, birthdays to celebrate the amazing children that we have along with Mother’s and Father’s Day to celebrate joining the world of parenthood. 

But I can always enjoy a special day about love just for the sake of it. We spend Valentine’s Day as a family…we all love each other…the holiday is about love.  So, why not? We do special things like make heart shaped foods, dye things pink and/or red and make heart shaped crafts.  We also go out to dinner as a family. We don’t eat out too often and when we do, it is rarely without a specific reason.  So, this is our reason…we love each other, so nobody has too cook or do dishes, we go out instead and enjoy a yummy meal together.  This year instead of making heart pancakes or cinnamon rolls with pink icing, we decided to surprise the kids with breakfast out.  It was fun on so many different levels. First of all, it is a long weekend (i.e. winter break) for the public school system…the kids have Thursday, Friday, the weekend and Monday off…but my hubby still has to work a regular today and Friday…so he and I got up early and got ready (him for work and me for a day of errands)…then we woke the kids up and got them dressed. We didn’t offer drinks or breakfast, just dressed them and ushered them out the door. It was quite funny. Neither of them are morning people and neither of them were thrilled to be woken early on a ‘no-alarm-day’. LOL.  They were still nearly asleep in the car on the way there and didn’t ‘wake up’ till we got to our destination.  I’d seen an advertisement that our local Chick-fil-A restaurant would be serving heart shaped biscuits for breakfast and we thought that the kids would find it a fun treat. We were not disappointed! The kids loved their breakfast treat…a double treat at that…breakfast out and shaped like hearts!  It was a great way to start our day.  Rounding out our day with a family supper at Red Lobster was the perfect way to spend the day celebrating our family’s love for each other. 

~Jac

SNOW DAY...

They are among our favorite days….which is odd to all of our friends. You see, we are a ‘Southern’ family. In case you weren't aware, ‘Southern’ is less about where you live and more about how you are raised. It is a frame of mind and a lifestyle born in the south and raised all over the world…it is how my husband and I were both raised and it is how we are raising our kids. Sweet Tea, Watermelon and Fried Green Tomatoes, if you will. But all of that has nothing to do with our love of the snow.  The kids and I love the cold, too…we don’t chill easily as Daddy and as much as we love 100+ degree temperatures in the summer (and will quite literally spend the entire day outside enjoying it), we love the arctic chill that brings that beautiful blanket of snow.  You’re right, it doesn't stay pretty for long.  And if I am completely honest, I don’t love all the wet that goes with it. Everything gets wet…pants, shoes, floors, anything on the floors, etc, etc.   The funny thing is that our kids will do just about anything in the snow that they will do in the blistering heat of summer…ride tricycles, swing on the swings, slide down the slides, etc…and then they add in things like making snow angels (at which point Lil’ Man always ends up stuck on his back like a turtle), building snow forts and surprise-ambushing Daddy with snowballs when he gets home from work.  For us, there is no reason to stay inside just because there is a foot of the white stuff in our yard.  That just means it’s time to grab a sled and hike up the hill across from our house (well, we all hike…and Lil’ Man sits in the sled and rides up the hill…next year that crap stops…he can hike himself…LOL).  Or fill spray bottles with water and food coloring…or even squeeze bottles with water, cornstarch and food coloring…and go outside and ‘paint’ on the giant blank canvas that has enveloped our world. 

It also means jammies, movies and baking. What better day to have the oven on than when it is a mere 25 degrees outside? So, we pick some recipes (I try to keep it a bit organized…one baked dessert, one baked breakfast-style food and a one-dish supper casserole or pot pie) and a movie (or even a movie series) and spend our time inside watching movies and cooking.  You see, once K started school, snow days took on a whole new meaning.  Before that, it was really just a day that happened to include snow because without the commitment of school, our days were relatively similar.  Now that she is in school, things are a bit different.  First of all, weekends become quickly filled with family activities and outings which results in less time spent on some of the other things that were just part of a regular day before school joined the mix.  So now a snow day means a random, unplanned, full day off. When the plan for the day included school for K and household stuff for C and I, a snow day means we get a free pass.  The household stuff an wait till tomorrow and for today we’ll fill this free day with things that we don’t always have time for as often as we once did.  So, it’s sledding, snow angels, forts, shoveling (yes, our kids enjoy that, too), baking, movies and lots of blankets and ‘free time’!!

Now, if you’ll excuse me, the kitchen timer is beeping…brownies are done!

~Jac

Coffee, Pop-Tarts and my Lil' Man...

Few things make a morning better than spending it with one or both of my sweet children.  K has been so independent all her life that she never was a 'snuggler' or one to spend part of the morning in my lap while we eat breakfast and whatnot. Now, she'd sit in Daddy's lap and watch car shows all morning on Saturday...but she was Daddy's Girl from the instant she entered this world.  C, on the other hand, is a snuggler. Has been since the moment he entered this world. He didn't use to care much about who snuggled him, but as he gets older, he has begun to prefer me...a definite Mamma's Boy at this point.  But, at 2 1/2 that is acceptable.

Today I woke up with the worst headache and Little Miss Independent went on about her business getting ready for school and selecting her breakfast.  She is buying lunch today, so she needed even less help (at least on cold-lunch days, she needs/wants me to pack her lunch for her).  She didn't need anything from me until all that was left was her hair.  She has a thick, coarse mop of wavy hair and at 5 1/2 she has neither the patience or skill to fix it herself. And we have a hair rule...hair must be up and out of the face for school.  So, I went to fix her hair and that was that.

We took her to school and then came back home to enjoy our quiet morning routine.  Just me and Lil' Man. Most days he begins with a bucket of cars and does his own thing while I get a cup of coffee (usually my second of the day).  But today as I got my coffee (first cup of the day since I was barely functioning enough to make a ponytail for K, much less fix my coffee and drink it when I first got up), he came in and asked for 'Pop-Arts' (Pop-Tarts)...I told him yes and he went to pick which flavor he wanted this morning.  Now, in general, I do not believe Pop-Tarts to be healthy...but if you knew the rest of the diet preferences of my two kids, you'd understand why I don't care much if that is what they choose for breakfast.  They prefer apples, carrots, grapes, broccoli and anything that can go in a salad far more than they do cookies, cakes, candies or any other sort of processed or pre-packaged foods.  I believe that, in moderation, it's okay to splurge on some things as long as you are balancing it with fresh, healthy choices as well.  So, 'Pop-Arts' it is. : )

Then, now this is the best part, he says 'Mamma, let's snuggle and eat Pop-Arts together'...AWWWW! Yes, Lil' Man, I will snuggle with you and eat Pop-Tarts!!! So, we spent the next hour...just the two of us...snuggled on the couch eating Pop-Tarts and drinking coffee/milk (respectively).  No TV, no games, no computer, no phone....just me and my baby that is growing up too fast. Sure, I could have switched the laundry, unloaded the dishwasher or sorted the mail from yesterday...but those are still there waiting for me...and he has now moved on to reading book, playing number games and Bad Piggies on his Kindle. That moment is gone but the rest remains. So took the opportunity to share that moment with him and I'll get to the rest later...

~Jac