True Loves

Jane decorating her little Valentine, Joseph

Ethan woke up on his own at 6 am to do Reid's job of taking out the trash, as well as make a breakfast of fruit shake, eggs, and heart-shaped pancakes for his little brother's birthday. I wouldn't have gotten up if it weren't for his motivation-- what a sweetie!

We love the Linde Girls!

Jessica and Erica are some of our BEST babysitters.

These little Valentine-bugs brought Beanie Babies for each of the kids on Sunday night.

Ironically I don't have a picture of me and my true love to post. Fortunately we can laugh about our current stage in life and don't get discouraged over it (at least we didn't last night.) Between five children, his mentally-taxing job, a house that we are still finishing remodelling/organzing, and his calling as YM President, our busy life seems to become more and more demanding. Not that we are unique in this aspect-- we have been raised in families and are surrounded by people who are just as busy. But it's amazing nonetheless to consider what we are responsible for when in years past we thought we had reached our limits, and yet we are now doing even more. I guess it's really amazing how we can grow.

We intentionally decided not to go out on this Valentine's Day because it fell on a Monday night and weeknight dates disrupt our family routine too much, so we decided to have dinner at home with the kids followed by FHE. I have to admit that by 5 pm I entertained the idea of scrambling to find a babysitter so we could join our friends for a gourmet meal at our favorite chef-owned restaurant in Sunnyside, Bon Vino's (yes, it is actually VERY good and IN SUNNYSIDE, but usually only open for breakfast and lunch.)

But I stuck to the plan and made chicken burritos, a meal we all like so at least I wouldn't hear any complaining at the table. Derek brought home roses, which he admitted was a lame cop-out, but I could only laugh as he described the dozens of schmucks in line at the grocery store, lining up to buy their girlfriends bouquets and balloons and chocolates at 6:30 pm-- and there he was right there with them. It was okay though, because the best I could do was a card that said, "You had me at 'Babysitter'", which in this case, wasn't even true. Although I did send him three Google-Map email Valentines throughout the day that pinpointed romantic vacations we have taken in years past.

The most romantic thing Derek and I did after dinner was clean the kitchen together, followed by a brief FHE lesson and then a Harry Potter Lego game with the kids. We had a yummy dessert of Ghirardelli Brownies with Strawberry compote and whip cream.

After shuffling the kids off to bed, we stumbled to our own bed and snuggled up in front of Derek's iPhone to watch an old episode of The Office. Yes, you heard me, we watch TV on his iPhone. Yes, we do have two nice, larger TVs downstairs, but it's cozier in bed. Since we have been married Derek has maintained that TVs don't belong in the bedroom, but now that his favorite show is available on his handheld device and we are too tired to even make it down to the couch, I might have to convince him that it might just make sense to give in and get a TV so we can watch our shows on something larger than a 4" screen. We fell asleep listening to scriptures (also on the iPhone). Great technology, but bad idea to listen to scriptures when you're as tired as we were-- put us right to sleep.

I couldn't ask for a better friend, partner, true love, than Derek S. Weaver. I've got a really great man.

(Photo taken in days-of-leisure-past)