Valentine's Day 2014

We don't do as much for Valentine's Day as for some of the other holidays. It's usually just a matter of putting together valentines for Seth's preschool class before hand, a nice dinner with a few small presents on Valentine's Day, and a date between Jason and I on another day. Jason and I haven't taken that date yet, but it's in the works.

These are some of the little toys the boys got for Valentine's day.

 Pink and red!

 These don't look pretty, but they tasted wonderful!

 Yes, I have hair chalk and love using it.

 Jason sent me these roses! They're so pretty. Attached to some of the roses was a piece of paper, one for each year we've spent Valentine's Day together. Each one shares a thought he had on that particular Valentine's day. Those are the papers taped to the vase in this picture.

So let me explain what they say.
On Valentine's Day in the year 2007, we said "I love you" to each other for the first time. That was the moment Jason was sure we would spend the rest of our lives together. So the first paper says:

I know who I want to spend my life with...

In 2008, it was our first Valentine's Day as a married couple. Honestly, we settled in to marriage so easily. Not to say we didn't have tiffs at times, but life was great, going to college, being together, getting excited to graduate. So the second paper says:

So amazing to be married to my best friend...

In 2009, Seth was just a few months old. We were new parents and just figuring out how little sleep we would actually be getting and how much joy we were going to get from this new little addition to our family. We'd had no idea how wonderful, hard, and rewarding parenting would be. So the third paper says:

Who knew love could be this strong and would grow larger when shared...

By 2010, we had figured out the parenting bit a little more, but my back problems were at their worst. They've since gotten a LOT better thankfully, but during those incredibly hard months, it was our love and strong marriage that really carried both of us through. Chronic pain is so much more than just pain, and I don't know if a weak marriage would have been able to handle it. Just thinking of this is making me tear up, because I couldn't have had a better witness of Jason's love for me than during that time in our marriage, when he was cooking every meal, worrying about my constantly, even helping me put on my pants in the morning or get out of bed, because I literally couldn't do these things by myself. I don't know exactly what I've done to deserve him, but I thank the Lord every day for him. That Valentine's, I sent him a message, and Jason quoted a small part of it on the fourth paper:

"We have been married for 911 days today! Happy happy happy 900 days. I love you..."

I went to a chiropractor who was able to take away the majority of the pain through a lot of thought, prayers, and basically just not giving up on me. Doctors thought maybe the rest of my pain was caused by a hormonal upset, so they suggested we have another baby to kind of reset my hormones. Kailand was born the next January. It didn't fix my pain, but it did give me another reason why the pain didn't matter so much. I'm so glad we were blessed with our two wonderful boys. So the thought for 2011 was:

Three becomes four, and our love grows stronger...

By the next year, we had purchased our first house! It was really exciting and fun. The thought Jason chose to represent the year 2012 was:

Our little family makes a house a home...

It was obvious by Valentine's Day of 2013 that we weren't going to be able to add any more children to our family by ourselves. We'd found out by then that my pain was caused by arthritis in my lower back, and carrying a child could really be bad for my body. Luckily, Jason and I had said from the time we were married that we wanted to adopt eventually. Adoption is just such a blessing to all involved, and it helps everyone to grow in love and understanding. So we were looking toward adoption, which is why Jason picked this statement to represent Valentine's Day 2013:

We open our hearts and home to grow further...

And now, here we are, Valentine's Day 2014. We are waiting to see what the future holds. We are anxious to see who we will get to know and how our lives will be blessed. So the thought Jason chose for now, for how we feel at this moment is:

Never been so excited for the future and what's to come...

I took all these little slips of paper off of the roses very carefully and Jason challenged me to put them in order. I did really well! And it was fun to reminisce about all we have been through and will get to experience together. 

(As a side note, did you notice that Jason got me a Lord of the Rings card for Valentine's Day? This man knows the way to my heart!)