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. 

Happy Galentine’s Day!

My girls think Galentine’s and Valentine’s Day are official holidays, so it makes no sense to them why they aren’t off from school. To say they love holidays (or celebrations) is an understatment. I did tell them that if they worked hard to get Wednesday’s work done ahead of time, we’d take the day off, so they might get their wish after all. If your mini gals are just as excited about celebrating Galentine’s Day as mine, here are some simple celebration ideas for you…

– Make small bouquets and give to neighborhood friends.
– Make flower crowns.
– Watch a cute and quirky movie together. I’m thinking the 1980’s Anne of Green Gables movie.
– Can’t go wrong indulging in some cookies and chocolates while watching said movie.
– Write little notes of encouragement for other important gals in your life (or just send them a text).
– Work on a craft together… maybe heart chain garland or lollipop flowers.
– Make kettle corn.
– Bake together.
– Read a book celebrating friendship.
– Have a picnic outside (even if it’s in your backyard or front lawn).

We will definitely be doing some of the above once school is done for the day. I’m thankful for my little galentine’s and how their hearts love celebrating!

Yarn Wire Word Art

Supplies:
1 skein of yarn
4 yards floral decorative wire
Wire cutter
Scissors

Directions:
1. Using finger knitting (tutorial here), create a 4 yard long garland.
2. Insert the wire through the back of the knitted garland, weaving it in and out of the yarn links. Fold 1″ of each end backwards.
3. Carefully bend your yarn-wire garland to create a word.

We made our word love in honor of Valentine’s Day, but once that day has come and gone, we will change it to Soul (since it designates her side of the room) and we will make another for Glow (for her side of the room). If you want another wire word art project, try this one out!

vintage bamboo bed frame: elsie green. kantha quilt: uncommon goods. 

This week’s learned, links, and thankfulness…

In the middle of a website refresh, so don’t mind the wonky bits here and there. It’s still a work in progress, but hopefully once it’s completed, it will be simpler and mobile friendly.

I’d really like some garlic parmesan potato wedges.

Thankful that the second round of the flu stayed confined to True alone, and after a few days of resting, she was back to her normal self.

Brave is so excited to finally start the very last Harry Potter book!

I ought to tap into my Filipino heritage more and make Filipino food (like this lumpia), with a healthy slant of course.

Everlane’s got some new goods and if you’ve been wanting to try some wide leg pants, I highly recommend theirs.

And how darling are these pink heeled mules from the Gap?! It certainly declares spring!

Been reminded this week that God’s plans are perfect. I don’t need to freak out or doubt when things aren’t according to plan (all of last year felt that way for our family), but I can keep trusting because God is God.

Hope you get a restful weekend, friends!

It really hit Ben and me that we are now in a new stage of parenting, a particularly crucial stage. Really though, every stage is pertinent. True and Brave are at the cusp of their teen years and this tween thing does feel like something else. All my bad parenting habits have become even more glaring. My bad habit of being quick to anger and slow to speak is coming back to haunt me full force, and I better learn fast how to be slow to anger cause otherwise this is all going to go south real fast. As mom, I know I kind of set the tone at home, so I really need a lot of  “tuning my heart to sing thy grace.” This means I ought to be spending lots of time in prayer and reading God’s word. I won’t survive if I’m not feeding my soul. In addition, I must intentionally go about my day depending on God and not trying to control everything myself (hard for a control freak like me to do).

There’s a lot of emotions going on at home, especially for my biggest girls, and I can see the changes in them and between them. I’ve been their mother (and obviously, still am), but now is the time where they also need me to be their friend. Ben and I have spent the last (almost) 12 years setting the tone, rules, routine, expectations, but now, during this particular stage, I’m learning they also just need me to be their friend. They need me to listen and talk through things instead of simple tell them things. So we’re working on it, we aren’t doing it perfectly, and they’ll be lots of messing up along the way, but I’m glad these mess ups point all of us to the cross. It always gives us an opportunity to talk about how we can’t do it, but we can trust in Jesus Christ who did.

Lollipop Flowers

Supplies:
Lollipops
Card stock
Crepe paper (two colors, for center of the flower and leaves)
Heart paper punch
Hole puncher
Glue
Scissors

Directions:
1. Punch out (or cut out) 4 hearts. Then, punch a hole at the bottom of each heart and fold each heart in half.
2. Wrap the lollipop head with two 4″ crepe paper (used 2 pieces to make sure lollipop was completely covered) and twist tightly at the base.
3. Insert the lollipop stick through the hole on the 4 hearts. Spread out the hearts to create the flower petals. Get the hearts as close to the base (the paper and lollipop wrapper help give the hearts a snug fit on the lollipop). Add dabs of glue if needed to secure the hearts in place.
4. Cut out crepe paper leafs and glue to the bottom of the petals.

Attach a little poem that says “Roses are red, violets are blue, if you were a flower, I’d pick you!” Also, the lollipop flowers would look really cute with a few together in a bouquet (maybe make using cake pops!) for a teacher. These would also work for Easter baskets too!