Be Mine

Valentine's Day for my husband and I hasn't been a huge deal, which to me is not a bad thing! I don't feel like I need one particular day to remind myself of how much I love my husband. Once we got pregnant with Ashton, our first baby, we were, of course, congratulated, but the congratulatory praise was followed by, "Get ready to have NO life!" Seriously, NO LIFE?!? Well, that spurred up enough gumption in us to simply continue living life with added members in our family. We've never stopped dating, and that to me is more important that just one holiday made by some random person. That's not to say that we as a couple don't celebrate it! That's what the day AFTER Valentine's day is for (no crowded restaurants or having to make reservations weeks in advance.) Don't copy us... It's our idea. ;)

This year, Valentine's Day seemed a little bigger for us, though. It was Ashton's first Valentine's Day where he would pass out Valentine cards and celebrate at school. I had this great plan of making all the cards and letting Ashton write, or doodle, on them to his little friends. Well, Valentine Eve comes along and I still haven't done anything, so we resorted to the store bought ones. However, I did make two. One for each of his teachers. However, I didn't think to do them until it was just about time to take Ashton to school. As I hurriedly cut out a pink and a red construction paper heart, the most piercing memory of Valentine card making roused in my head. It was my second grade year of school, and the days approaching Valentine's Day were occupied with making Valentine cards. My mom would cut out hearts and little cartoon things from random magazines, then had us (my brothers and I) paste them on to card stock. We then proceeded to write personal (or not) Valentine messages to our classmates. I'm not sure if I ever vocalised it, but I always wondered why we could never just BUY the darn things. This was way too much effort for something that was going to end up in the trash... or worse, get laughed at. After passing out the cards in class, my teacher raved about my cards and the efforts put into them. I don't know if she did that to cheer me up or what, but I was probably the happiest and proudest little thing in that classroom that day. With this in my mind, I thought about how much things like this, such as home made Valentine cards, probably influenced the things I like now. I like the old school toys and the popular old books for my kids, and now I wanted to hand make my sons Valentine cards, which you can view here*.

Happy Valentine's Day!

To Amy, From Ashton

*Valentine Card idea credited to Tinkerlab.