Just like my girls, I love to celebrate. I love special days for showering my loved ones with something special, making special requests and getting treats, but sometimes, when life is busy and you’ve been married for almost 13 years, you’re cool with a mellow Valentine’s Day too. I have no gift for Ben and I’m not expecting anything from him, except maybe for ice cream. The last few months have been a bit more stressful for us, so we agreed to keep it chill this year. We did sneak in a quick date on Sunday afternoon, which was nice because we don’t do things like that often, and are pretty content with our Friday evening date nights on the floor of our bedroom (with homemade sushi and movie!). The last couple years have been a time of growth and change in different ways, but what I notice most from him is His deepening love for God and growing desire to lead our family well. He also reminds me of what really matters and tries to get me to refocus on kingdom and eternity things (I often just see the here and now, and get stressed out by it).

We certainly don’t have a perfect marriage. In fact, Sunday morning we fought on the way to church gathering. As he was driving, he heard a rattling between us, and wanted me to figure it out to make it stop, so during my haste, I was touching his coffee cup, then he got mad I was touching where he puts his mouth to drink. Then, I said, “Next time, you do it yourself.” We tried talking about other things after, but we definitely weren’t kind with each other, so regular petty marriage fights like that do happen and we fight about some not so petty things too. We’ve got the regular stresses of family life, time management, trying to make sure we’re giving the kids attention, prioritizing each other, trying to stay within our budget, taxes, house stuff, staying involved with church family, and all the normal stuff you likely have going on too. With all the busyness going on in this particular season for us, we’re trying to keep our head above water, so it will be a simple Valentine’s for us. We have a gift card to a local sushi place, he’ll pick up food on the way home, and we’ll relax together once the kids are in bed. As long as I’m with Ben (and have ice cream after dinner), I’d say it sounds like the perfect way to spend Valentine’s Day.

So if you’re spending today with your friends, kids, or your significant other, going all out or keeping it simple like us, I hope you have a wonderful Valentine’s Day with the ones you love!

See some of our past Valentine’s celebrations: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014 here and here, 2013, and 2012. I could go back even further as I’ve been blogging since 2007, but I think that’s good for now. It’s fun to look back and see how we’ve grown and changed.